Combining Diagonal Box and Puff stitches

I’ve shown you how to do diagonal box stitch, then how to do a diagonal puff stitch variation, and then the Storm Clouds pillow pattern, which was made entirely using the puff stitch. For even more fun, you can combine both the puff stitch and the box stitch, with or without color changes. Let’s use this simple heart shaped chart to explore some of the possibilities!

Here, I have worked the entire chart in one color, so the heart is created just by varying the textures. I worked the background in plain boxes, and the heart shape in puffs. It’s a subtle difference, but would be more noticeable on a larger surface.

Now let’s add a color change. For this swatch I made the background in one color, in plain boxes. The heart is in a 2nd color, in puffs. You can see how the puff stitches really make the heart pop up off the background!

Want more fun? Let’s add stripes! Here, the heart is worked in puffs, in a self striping yarn, and the background in plain boxes in a single color. The puffs use up more yarn, so they make the color changes happen much faster. From an angle, you can really see how the puff stitches stand up above the background.

Combining color changes and textures can be so much fun – this is just a simple chart, but think what you could do on a more complicated one! There are lots of colorwork charts available for use with diagonal box stitch, but working a few elements in puff stitch can really make them pop.

For example, you could give Santa a puffy beard on this cute square by Repeat Crafter Me.