Full disclosure before I say anything else, I’m asking this out of personal curiosity and a desire to help friends out but also because I plan on making a video about it so yes it’s kind of a research question too.
Ok. So personally I use Pattern Keeper, and it’s been great. But I find myself wondering what other apps have popped up in the couple of years since I first discovered PK. The other day someone tagged me in a Mastodon question about alternatives, and then a similar convo coincidentally broke out on Discord too, so clearly other people are asking the same question.
Now, I know about a few apps already. Markup R-XP has a devoted following. CrossStitchSaga I apparently need to try because I hear it supports backstitch. And resident app developer @ClickStitch@sh.itjust.works posts here regularly with updates on their new contender.
But I thought I’d cast a wider net and see what everyone else is using.
Do you use one of the ones I listed? Do you use another specialised cross stitch app? Do you use something that was originally designed for a totally different purpose but turns out to work great for stitching? Or do you prefer to keep things analog and mark off printed patterns with a pen?
Would love to hear what you like and dislike about your current solution, and I’m hoping to get to test a load of them out and do a proper comparison of them all.
I promise to do a writeup of the conclusions here too so it’s not just stuck in video form!
It’s more a matter of being used to the paper pattern. That, and the fact that if I drop it while wrestling my thread-eating cat out of the way, it’s unlikely to break, eheheh.
(I could also ramble on for a while about Why I Would Feel It Necessary to Build My Own Tablet, but it isn’t germane here. Suffice to say that I’m unlikely to find a consumer-level device that operates in a way that I’m willing to put up with.)
That’s a fair point! To be honest I really only use my tablet for cross stitch, watching tv, and looking up guitar tabs so I don’t really need it to do anything too complicated lol
I’m a computer programmer by profession. I spend 12+ hours a day, every day, staring at screens. The second-last thing I want to do in my off hours is arm wrestle bad user interfaces (especially if I have to do it while also wrangling cats). If I’m not being paid to deal with a device, it can do things my way or get sent back to the manufacturer. So there. 😜
That would definitely make me sick of looking at screens too lol!