3colgingtut

When I was at junior school many years ago, I hand sewed a cloth sewing needle holder.
It was in a lovely 3 colour Gingham pattern in yellow white and grey.
I loved the pattern because I am a Gingham fan and this particular one was unusual!.
I have searched for cloth like it ever since but to no avail.
(I would love to make country style curtains and table cloth for my kitchen with it.)
However, I decided to try making one like it to use as webpage background or fill pattern.
Luckily I still have my old needle holder, so with it by my side at the `puter and my P.S.P all fired up,
I began to experiment, and I think I have come up with a pretty close copy! This is how ...

Working on your second square, click on the flood fill tool,
then open your styles pallette and select a medium colour of your choice (fig 3)

Click OK to close the pallette dialogue box, then click on the smaller square to fill with colour.Then go to edit/copy and close the smaller image. Go to edit/paste as new layer, you will now have a small coloured square within your original image. Drag this square to the top left corner of the larger one (fig 4)

(Now would be a good time to save the work you have done so far
and it is a good idea to save after each step!)
Now click on the flood fill tool again, go to the styles pallette
and select another medium colour as before. (fig 5)

Start another new image as fig 2 and flood fill with your new colour.
Then edit/copy and close the new image, edit/paste as new layer and drag it to the top right corner of the original image. (fig 6)

Click Ok then flood fill the new image with your new colour.
Go edit/copy and close the new image then edit/paste as new layer
and drag the new square on your original image to the bottom left corner. (fig 8)

Leave the last square white, go to layers/merge/merge visible. That`s it!!!
Now save your gingham for future use. The one you have made may be larger than you would like ( it is easier to make it at a larger scale then resize it!).
If you want a smaller check, simply go to image/resize
and change the scale to your preferred size (fig 9)

Experiment with different size checks for varying effects.
Why not also experiment with different colour schemes, or even three shades of the same colour with white to make a regular style Gingham pattern.
I hope you like this pattern as much as I do,
I think it is rather different to most Gingham checks !...