I hope you don't mind the recent phase of cross stitch patterns here at Cthulhu Crochet and Cousins. I'm also working on some crochet projects right now and I'm sure we'll be back to your regularly scheduled dose of crochet soon. Lately I've been playing around with the free trial version of MacStitch 2010 courtesy of Softpedia. I thought I'd share this pattern I designed featuring Firefly's Kaylee in her famous dress from the episode Shindig.
Now, I haven't actually stitched this piece. What you're seeing is the program set to display the pattern as stitches. It also allows you to change the fabric colour and number of thread strands you're using in your stitches, which are pretty nifty features.
I also really like the "replace thread" feature which allows you to select any colour you've used and replace it with any other colour in the DMC palette (or Anchor, or whatever brand of floss you prefer). It's perfect for those moments when you're wondering how someone's hair will look if it was a little darker, or if their shirt would look better in a different colour. My least favourite feature, the eraser. It erases, but it's finicky. If you want to erase backstitches, you have to select the backstitch tool first. Then if you have some cross stitches to erase, it won't erase them unless you select the cross stitch tool first. I'd prefer if it just erased one square of stitching at a time, regardless of what kind of stitches you have in the square. Making corrections would go much faster that way!
That being said, the MacStitch trial is still pretty versatile and a lot of fun to play around with. To my knowledge you can't do blended stitches, which again is fine for small designs like this, but would become frustrating if you were trying to create something more elaborate. To be fair, there may be a way to do blends, I haven't dug too far into the program's help menu yet to see.
And now, without further ado, the pattern card for Kaylee in her Shindig dress. Enjoy, and don't forget my other Firefly cross stitch patterns are available in the My Free Patterns menu on the left.
And just for reference, a picture of the real Kaylee in her dress:
4 comments:
I love the cross stitch patterns! I'm actually more of a cross stitcher than a crocheter, and I love Firefly. I do love your crochet pieces to though. I might have to get that software.
Thanks Faren! The software is addictive and fun. The first day I spent about four hours absorbed in it, just seeing what the program could do. The free trial comes with the 'print' and 'save' functions disabled, but there are ways to work around that. Especially if you know how to take screen captures with Grab or some other Mac utility.
I did grab the software while I was thinking about it but haven't even opened it up. Hopefully I'll have a chance to play around with it this weekend.
Faren, let me know how it goes. I'd love to see what you come up with and hear your thoughts on the software. I'm still on the fence about buying the full version.
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