How to Solve Stitches Puzzles
Stitches requires you to connect irregular regions in a grid with line segments. Each region must connect to all neighboring regions.
For example, the pink region must connect to the yellow, purple, orange, and green areas. The blue region only needs to connect to the green one. The orange region connects to pink, purple and green. And so on.
For most puzzles, there may only be one connecting stitch between regions. Some variations or large puzzles may require two or three total stitches between each pair of regions.
- A “stitch” is a line segment that goes from the center of one cell to the center of a cell that is orthogonally adjacent. It consists of two dots (“holes”) as endpoints, and the line segment (the “stitch”) between them.
- There will never be more than one hole in a cell, and a hole cannot be used by more than one stitch. This means that no cell will ever have more than one line leading into it.
- The number clues tell you how many total holes exist in that row or column.
- A stitch will always go between two different regions, never connecting two cells in the same region.
- Not every cell will have a hole, therefore not every cell will necessarily be connected with a stitch.
If you’re lucky enough to have some clues that say 0, or match the total number of cells in that row or column, you will want to mark all of those with an X (for known empty cells), or a filled in circle (a hole) to begin.
We weren’t quite that fortunate with our example here, so we will need to begin with a little deduction.
We are starting with this small, isolated region, which is surrounded by the area it will connect to. In the same row, there is another small surrounded region, and the clue tells us we have only 2 holes in this row.
So we will imagine that there is a hole in this cell in the bottom of the red region. We know that a connecting stitch could not go upward, as that would be in the same region, so if this hole were correctly placed, the stitch would have to be connected to the right.
However, that would mean we would not be able to place a stitch hole in the blue region, because there would already be two holes in the row.
Therefore, the hole in the red region must be in the other cell.
Now that we know where a hole is, we will make it, and also place an X in all the cells that a stitch hole cannot exist. First, in the bottom of the red region that we just examined, and then along the rest of the row with a 1 for the clue.
Next, we can safely deduce that there is a stitch hole just above the red region, as there are no other orthogonally adjacent holes available.
And because the Xs just placed show us that there cannot be a vertical stitch between the blue and green regions, they must both be in the bottom row as shown, which satisfies the clue of 2.
Moving up, we will next examine this row. The clue tells us that there are 5 stitch holes total, and we already have one here, which means there are four remaining.
Of the five cells left, we can determine that one of these two cells with the hollow circles must be blank. Neither can have a vertical stitch, as both up and down is still within the same region. Also, they cannot both connect to the orange region, as the rule unless stated otherwise is that only one stitch is used to connect regions together.
This tells us that all three cells of the orange region must contain a stitch hole.
Before thinking about which direction our new stitches will go, I’m going to take a moment to mark some more known holes.
This column has a clue of 5, which means there must be three more stitch holes in addition to the two already placed. Since we have a known blank, the hollow circles mark spots where the remaining stitch holes must be.
Now we’re going to complete some stitches. The hole at the top of the column, marked with the blue circle, cannot connect to the right or down, because both directions would be in the same region. Therefore, it must connect to the cell to its left, in the yellow region.
Then the hole below it, marked with a yellow circle, cannot connect to the left, up, or down, again because it would still be in the same region. So it must stitch together with the purple region to the right.
After completing those two stitches, we can see that we’ve completed a row and column, so we use an X to mark out cells we know to be blank.
Then with that information, we can see that there are only just enough empty cells remaining in the first column and the two middle rows to perfectly match their clues, so we can know those cells must contain stitch holes.
After filling them out, all the clues are complete – there won’t be any more holes, so we can just worry about connecting them together.
First, I’ll join these two holes marked with blue circles. The pink and purple regions already have a connection, and neither hole can stitch to the left, so they must go together.
Starting on the left side of the puzzle, the two holes marked with red circles must complete a stitch, as they are the only remaining adjacent cells between the pink and green regions.
Next, the holes marked with blue circles must go together, because neither of them can be stitched to the right without being in the same region, and no other holes around them are unused.
As for the final four holes, they must both be horizontal stitches, because the two green cells cannot be connected together.
After marking those final deductions, we have completed the puzzle. As you can see, each region is connected to all adjacent regions by exactly one stitch each.
