Date: Fri, 01 Dec 1995 15:55:49 -0500 From: Jean Guneysu To: spamily@io.org Subject: Review of Cochenille's Stitch Painter program Just thought I would pass on what I know about Cochenille's Stitch Painter program that I have been using quite a bit... Stitch Painter Gold version 2.0 by Cochenille (a Windows program) is a very powerful tool for developing stitch patterns using a grid defined by the knitting gauge of each project. If your choice of yarn changes, you can even REGRID your design to fit the new gauge. You can use the software to simply design patterns or graphs or you can create a sweater outline and fill it in with patterns. There are standard drawing tools such as DRAW, FILL, EYEDROPPER (to pick up colors from your drawing), filled/unfilled SQUAREs and CIRCLEs, LINEs and CURVEs and of course the ever-popular UNDO feature. All tools operate within the confines of the grid you have selected so that each grid square (stitch) is either empty or filled. There are extensive COLOR PALETTE features and your colors are only limited by your computer's video output. A SELECT tool allows you to capture patterns to be used as BRUSHes which you can duplicate wherever you wish with one click of the mouse button (like using a rubber stamp to make a pattern). Brushes can be saved to disk for later use. With one mouse click and the DRAW IN REPEAT option set, you can also duplicate your motif symmetrically until it fills the entire screen. The neat thing about this feature is that you get a good look at what your pattern will look like over a large area, and also, any changes you make to one of the motifs will be instantly duplicated over all the repeats! This makes it nice to see how tiny changes can affect the entire look of a pattern. The STENCIL option allows you to lock colors on the palette so that you can draw without erasing a basic outline or pattern that you wish to remain unchanged (such as the outline of a sweater in black). Another use for this feature is to lock all but one color and then use a large brush with a new color to paint over the design and change one color to another no matter where it occurs. There are TEXTURE and PATTERN tools which allow you to paint with a large palette of textures/symbols to give the look of different stitches, or, to draw with pattern symbols such as those used in knitting and crochet charted patterns. Pictures can be IMPORTed in 2 colors using the Windows Clipboard (COPY your picture in one Windows program, then PASTE into Stitch Painter). Printing is the only area that I feel is very weak. The pictures produces are one pixel per grid-square and often come out the size of a postage stamp! This can be overcome by exporting to a PCX file and importing it into another program (I used Word for Windows) where it can be stretched to whatever size you want and printed very nicely, maintaining all the colors. When you are done, you can save your pattern in Stitch Painter format or EXPORT it to the following file types: PCX, S90, DAK, CUT, LBM, BBM. The last two are used by the Deluxe Paint software package from which Stitch Painter was derived. There are two versions available (in MAC and PC formats): Regular (without TEXTURES and PATTERNS and a few other things) for $89 and the Gold version (described here) for $165. The last information I have for Cochenille follows: PO Box 4276, Encinitas, CA 92024. phone: 619-259-1698. The 'book' mentioned in Liz's information about Cochenille is a binder with lots of good information on how to use the Deluxe Paint software mentioned above to design patterns. The Deluxe Paint software was $99 when I bought it (I have a habit of buying things just before a better idea is released..) and the Binder was about $30-$40. Deluxe Paint does not have gridding capabilities which is probably why the Stitch Painter program was developed. It is very cumbersome to use after Stitch Painter, but, better than nothing if you already own it... I have been knitting (with some breaks) for almost 30 years and am currently the VP Communications/Newsletter Editor for the Atlanta Knitting Guild (approx 150 members). I have taught a class on Using Your PC to Design Sweaters and use the computer extensively for my own designs.