The Plaid Studio / What to create / Plaid
Plaid pattern generator
A plaid is any cloth whose coloured stripes run both ways and cross into a grid. This generator weaves one the way a mill would: you set the stripes as a thread count, choose plain weave or twill, and every crossing is drawn thread by thread, so the blends between colours come out as they would on a loom.
- Thread count
G29 F8 G11 A5 F18 G6 B14 F4 A10 G8 B3 - WeavePlain weave, 2/2 twill, basket, herringbone, or a draft of your own
- SymmetryMirrored about pivots like a tartan, or running straight through like a madras
- SeamlessYes — one full sett across and down is the tile, so it repeats by construction
- ExportSeamless PNG on every plan; SVG, an A4 spec sheet and a WIF weaving draft on the paid plans
What a plaid generator should do
Most plaid makers draw coloured rectangles and lay a stripe over a stripe. Cloth does not work that way. In a woven plaid the warp and the weft cross, and where a red warp meets a navy weft the surface alternates the two yarns faster than the eye can separate them, so the crossing reads as a third colour that is in neither yarn. A plaid built from a thread count gets those crossings right on its own, and the same file can go to a printer, a print-on-demand shop or a mill.
That is also why the scale is set in threads rather than pixels: change the repeat width or the yarn count and the check keeps its proportions.
How to make a plaid
- Start from a check or a sentence. Pick one of the ready-made plaids below, or describe the cloth in words (“navy and forest green with a thin red line”) and the studio writes the thread count for you.
- Put your colours on it. Each letter in the thread count is a colour slot; choose a palette or paste hex codes and the structure stays the same.
- Choose the weave. Plain weave for gingham, madras and windowpane; 2/2 twill for tartan, houndstooth and glen check, with the fine diagonal inside every block.
- Export a seamless tile. A PNG at the size your product needs, or, on a paid plan, an SVG, an A4 sheet with a centimetre ruler for a mill, or a WIF draft for a loom.
Every plaid in the family
Each of these has a page of its own, with its thread count and a door into the studio on that cloth.
Questions
Is the plaid generator free?
Yes. The free plan has every design mode and every weave, and 10 clean exports a month (one export point each) at up to 1024px and 72 dpi, with no watermark. Larger files, 300 and 600 dpi, SVG, the A4 mill sheet and the WIF draft are on the paid plans.
Can I make a plaid in my own colours?
Yes. Pick a palette or paste your own hex codes; each letter in the thread count is a colour slot, so recolouring the cloth never changes its structure.
What is the difference between plaid and tartan?
Plaid is the whole family of crossing-stripe cloths. A tartan is a plaid whose stripe sequence is mirrored, woven in 2/2 twill and recorded under a name. Every tartan is a plaid; most plaids are not tartans.
Can I sell the plaids I make?
Yes. You own what you make on every plan, including Free, and may use it commercially.