Have you ever wanted to put your own photo or image on a pillow or an afghan? You could also make a corner to corner (c2c) blanket or use the same technique for a filét chart or a sweater.

What you need is:

• an image
• a crocheted stitch sample
• a computer
• time

You could use a cross stitch program. There are plenty of those out there. But most of them don't handle gauge, so they only work for you, if you have completely square stitches. (E.g. 16 stitches and 16 rows, making a complete square.)

The better programs should ask for your gauge. Because this gives you an endless row of possibilities as YOU choose, what stitches you want to use for your crocheted image. This way you could actually incorporate an image into an existing sweater pattern, if you wanted to.

This is where your crocheted stitch swatch comes in. Check my post about gauge.

The best FREE program, I'm familiar with, is Stitch Fiddle. It is pretty simple to use, but still gives you good tools to enhance your output.

And I'm not - in any way - paid to say so, I just love that tool

Walk-Through

Below is how you work with Stitch Fiddle. Most of the programs have similar options though.

• choose Crochet > Crochet with colors > Upload picture
• upload your desired image or photo.
• set your gauge first - check it on your crocheted sample.
• then choose the amount of columns and rows you want to end up with (Size).
• now you can adjust the amount of colors until the image looks good to you.

If your image is very simple, you are probably done by now. Otherwise, you can edit the chart.

Edit the Chart

With the chart open, you can change the color of any of the stitches as you want and add symbols to your chart. You can also replace a color with something else. Click on the 'more' bottom below the color palette and edit the colors in the palette one by one (click on the wrench symbol). This is useful, if you want to reduce some details - like a gradient background - so you have less colors you need to work with.

If you think it is fun, then explore other functionality here. You might find something useful.

About Images

Choose something easy to begin with. The better image you have to begin with, the better result you will get. In this case, 'better' means 'simple', with few colors and few details. When you get more advanced, you will need to know, how you prepare a huge and detailed image, before you turn it into a chart.
Stitch Fiddle supports a max of 250 columns and 250 rows. If you need something larger, you can split your image into more files before uploading it to Stitch Fiddle.

Stitch Fiddle, Shared Charts and Other Options

The base version of Stitch Fiddle is FREE and I have never gotten any spam from there, so don't hesitate to make an account. You can have 15 private charts in a free account. And all the shared charts you want. Get inspired, go see all the shared charts they have today. Some are funny and some are very beautiful.

There are also paid services and Facebook groups that can help you make graphgans. Before you buy anything, then remember to ask, if the gauge is handled as some might only do 1:1 squares.

Search for graphgans (or graphghans) on the internet or in Facebook.