Selections, Copy and Paste | Knytstudio Workshop

The Select Area tool is the editor’s workhorse for anything bigger than a single stitch. Drag a rectangle over part of your pattern and the options bar offers the actions: Copy, Paste, Magic Fill, and Delete.

Repeating motifs

Chart one snowflake, copy it (Ctrl+C), and paste it (Ctrl+V) across the canvas. Each paste places a fresh copy that you position with a click. A sampler border that would take an evening to chart stitch-by-stitch takes a minute this way.

The same trick handles mirroring a half-finished symmetric design, moving a motif that landed two stitches too far left, and lifting a detail from one corner to reuse in another.

Deleting in bulk

Select and delete clears an entire region in one action — much faster than the eraser for removing a background or scrapping a corner that did not work out.

Magic Fill

The fourth button in the selection options deserves its own page: it draws a brand-new figure into the selected area from a written description. See Magic Fill.

Keyboard habits

Selections are where the standard shortcuts pay off: Ctrl+C copy, Ctrl+V paste, Delete to clear, Ctrl+Z when the paste landed one row off. With those four in muscle memory, rearranging a pattern feels like editing text.

Frequently asked questions

Can I paste a motif multiple times?

Yes — copy once, paste as many times as you like (Ctrl+V), placing each copy where you want it. That is how borders and repeating patterns are built in seconds.

Does copying include backstitch?

Copy and paste works on the stitches. Add backstitch after the layout is settled — it is the natural last step anyway.

Can I move a motif that's in the wrong place?

Select it, copy, paste it in the right place, then delete the original selection. Two keystrokes and a click.