I remember a conversation with one of the executives at Jeanette Crews some years ago. We have been having some timiliness issues with a particular designer and and the “money” guy was a bit upset about the losses because we coule not get a pre-sold book to press. He asked in an outdoor voice, “Can’t we just scan it into something and get the instructions”. The three design professionals AND company CEO all said, in GREAT outdoor voices NO!!! Someone added “and best you get that thru your thick head once and for all”.
There is much more to pattern authoring than just the design of a motif, the choosing of a shape, and oh well the list goes on.
As often as not, I will get an email that makes it clear to me that something is not clear. Confused yet?
So many misunderstandings occur when Semantics meets Expectations
how does this relate to Symbol Crochet – Well, at the moment we have very few options, each has benefits BUT none of them can replace a Pattern Author or at least none in the the under $100 category includes the ability to WRITE/Author a Pattern –
And if I had time to research, I suspect it would in the uner $200 and in some cases features in the $2000 and up range.
Rather they CHART – create a graphic representation of a series of stitches to form a Motif.
The route of the chaos might be that while most professional designers understand that until they are ready to spend a LOT more money, many new to the business of design have not yet understood this and think at the programs in the $ 50.00 range are going to deliver.
For example, looking at the two I use/have used for CROCHET CHARTING
New England’s Software describes the purpose of SymbolCro as to provide computer aided drafting of circular and/or rectangular crochet patterns using symbols.
StitchWorks describes itself as software for creating symbol crochet charts that can be shared or published …
Neither says it is a pattern writer and frankly I don’t want them to be. When we are working on patterns for publications we have to be able to format as needed.
Are there “I Wish” features – sure – but we can all save ourselves a LOT of upset if we take the time to understand what we are buying and then make a decision if it meets our needs.
Life is just too dang short to waste any of it on unreasonable expectations.
While authoring a pattern is something I hope no machine can ever do, it is nice to see some of the toys to help lay the stitches out in a more easily-knit-from manner. This just showed up recently: stitch-maps.com Unfortunately, its maker has no intention of doing a similar one for crochet – probably because crochet is already covered by someone else’s software.
When shopping for a new car or refrigerator, we have Consumer Reports to guide us; they having done all the road-tests and research. Other than yourself and a couple of other technologically-leaning yarn-players, there’s no such organization to pre-test and review yarn/thread software. We’d all rather be playing with yarn/thread than evaluating it!
Jessica-Jean – love the CR reference, you have no idea how much an influence they had on me – but that is a story for another day.
It is not so much taking the time to play, as it is taking the time to ask a question.
I find that I am unwilling to consider any software that does not include a demo for at least a month. Even if it cripples “some functions” like printing.
Where I have a problem is when people purchase something without at least asking in advance if it will do what it the buyer needs.
Then, instead of accepting responsibility for their failure to act as an informed buyer – trash the seller. All to often before contacting the seller to see if there some form of recourse.
Thanks for helping to clarify – Caveat Emptor and if the seller does not answer your questions pre-sale – well that does not bode well for future support.
I do not even know how I finished up right here, but I thought this post was great.
This is going to sound odd but I only want the software to diagram a pattern which I have (paid or free) that I really like but the written instructions are beyond me to figure out. My thinking, is/was, to chart the instructions so I might understand what it is telling me to do. Hope this makes some kind of sense. Does any one have an option on either of the software product mentioned? The SymbolCro appears to have a demo, has anyone tried it? Comments? Tips? Thank you for listening.