Paisley pattern generator
The curled teardrop of shawls and neckties. Choose how far the tip curls, how plump the motif is, how many layers nest inside it and how it is tilted, and export a seamless paisley pattern as SVG, PNG or CSS.
Open in the generator How it works
A teardrop from Persia and India
The paisley motif is a teardrop with a curved tip. It is called boteh in Persian, meaning a bush or a cluster of leaves, and it has been woven and embroidered across Persia and India for centuries. Its Western name comes from the Scottish town of Paisley, where shawls with this motif were produced in large numbers in the nineteenth century.
The motif is usually filled with smaller shapes: bands, dots, flowers and tiny repeats of the same teardrop. Today it appears on shawls, neckties, bandanas, wallpaper and bedding.
How the generator builds them
Ornamatic sweeps a width profile around a bent center line: a round bulb that tapers into a tip curled to one side. Inside, scaled copies of the outline are cut out and filled in turn, so the layers appear as bands of color that follow the shape. The motif is tilted to a chosen angle and centered in its box.
The motifs are laid out in a half-drop repeat: every second one is shifted down by half the height of the cell and across by half its width. You can mirror the neighbouring rows, so that the tips curl in opposite directions, or keep them identical. The cell repeats exactly.
What you can adjust
- Curl — how far the tip bends sideways.
- Plumpness — the width of the bulb.
- Tilt — the angle of the motif.
- Layers — from none to three nested layers.
- Rows — mirrored or identical.
- Size and Period proportions — the size of the motif and the height of the cell, in advanced mode.
- Colors — up to three colors on a ground; any palette.
Export and use
Download the seamless tile as PNG or SVG, or copy a ready CSS background. The patterns you create are free to use, personally or commercially.
