What “open source” means for the average user of this project is that the Version 1.2 is now free and available for download for Windows and Mac. He was very responsive to suggestions, and he was working hard to figure out what crocheters need in order to create useful software. He got a pretty good start, but he stopped being able to work on it, and made it open source in September 2015 under the GPL v3 license.
I worked a bit with developer Brian Milco in the very early stages of development.
So what’s the state of crochet software today? Crochet Charts from Stitch Works Softwareīackground & Support: Crochet Charts from Stitch Works Software is a program that has been around for a few years. **I am specifically excluding filet and color-graphing charts from this discussion, as they are absolutely straightforwardly grid-based. And don’t even Sponsored Links think of looking for a program that automatically translates written instructions to diagrams. This offers a particular challenge to the software developer who is trying to create a program that works for all crochet stitch patterns.
Instead, crochet can be very organic, changing directions and stitch heights, bending and curving in many different ways. If it did, and if all the stitches were the same height and didn’t bend and lean, crochet stitches would be easier to diagram. In crochet, one stitch doesn’t always go into the next stitch in a tidy, grid-based fashion **.
Knitting is a very binary (knits/purls) and grid-based fiber art, making it fairly easy to chart. Getting all these resources together takes both time AND money. It helps to have a great user interface to make it easy and accessible for all. It takes both in-depth knowledge of the underlying computer architecture and programming, as well as a clear understanding of end-user needs (what crochet designers need the program to do). Software development is a very time-consuming and complex task. But what about the other 99.9% of the crochet population? Are there viable alternatives that allows the average crocheter to create stitch charts? Yes and no, but mostly “not yet”. Well I’m sure you’re growing tired of listening to me ramble on about this so go ahead and just CLICK HEREto start crating your own custom graphghan patterns.Knowledgeable crochet illustrators can create professional-looking crochet charts using vector graphics editors, as I showed in a previous post. I have a frenzy of ideas going through my mind of all the types of blankets I want to make for birthdays, Christmas etc… you can get super fun and creative with making seasonal blankets that are themed for your couch throw blanket with a graphghan for every season. I am about to get lost in the craft store (sorry in advance to my husband) this house will be flooded in yarn over the next number of months. You can literally take a picture from your camera or google a picture (perfect idea for those cartoon characters) but you can take any picture you want and have this crochet graphghan pattern maker create a custom pattern just for you! It literally breaks it right down colors needed! This is taking crochet to a whole other level for me. A website called Stitch Fiddle will take you from start to finish in creating your very own graphghan pattern. Ok, this is something that I am so excited about … I am literally having a hard time containing my excitement while I type this!! I’m not sure if you’re familiar with graphghan’s but this crochet graphghan pattern maker is AMAZING!!!! To say the least.