Mosaic check

Open a piece of pixel art to see which stitches overlay mosaic crochet can make. Click any pixel to swap its color, and once everything works you get the row-by-row pattern.

You can also drop or paste an image anywhere on the page.

Pattern

How the rule works

Each row of overlay mosaic is worked in one yarn, and the yarns alternate: one row dark, the next row light. A pixel that matches its row's yarn is a plain single crochet.

A pixel that doesn't match its row can only be made by the row above it. That row drops a double crochet down over the stitch and covers it in the other yarn.

A dropped double crochet can't land on a stitch that's already covered by another one. That gives the whole rule: a pixel in the wrong yarn for its row needs the pixels directly above and below it to be in their own row's yarn.

What that means when you draw:

  • Shapes are always an odd number of rows tall: 1, 3, 5, and so on. Two rows tall never works.
  • A shape has to start and end on a row of its own yarn.
  • Width doesn't matter. Anything goes from side to side.
  • Diagonals climb two rows at a time, which gives mosaic its stair-step look.
  • The first and last rows can only use their own yarn, so most patterns start and end with a plain row.

Start a blank grid

An odd number of rows lets the top and bottom rows use the same yarn.