Charting Your Own Course

If you like to branch out on your own, you will need some charting tools.

You may be modifying something (from the public domain of course) for a sewing small you have in mind. You may want to create a family heirloom sampler. Or you may want to convert a photograph (not copyrighted by someone else of course). Here are some resources you can use to make your own designs.

Plain Graph Paper
Graphtablet downloadable program to make your own graph paper, customized major and minor divisions and colors - free
Cyberstitchers customized PDF graph paper maker - can be used to overlay a pdf image, too.
Online graph paper generator (creates PDF) Incompetech
Sova with bold line every 10 (pdf download)
Grids and instructions for making charts from images from JPF
Cross Stitch graph paper in 9 through 14 count sizes

Online Photo Conversion
X-Stitch online tool to convert a picture to a chart (limited to 500 x 500 pixel size)
Layden with Stitches tutorials and tips for photos to cross stitch

Online Text Charting Tools
Stitchpoint has several fonts
X Stitch Info text charting tool
Convert names and captions to Celtic typestyle

Download Software
Stitch Shop Pro (free)
Another version
Stitch Shop is digitizing software, not to create from scratch.

Pixel Hobby to convert images to charts
Cross Stitch Studio (Ursaware) also for the most part digitizing software, however, you can create from scratch
Stitches - for Mac OS X, primarily scan and photo to chart software.

KG Stitch - a cross stitch design software (and picture conversion) that is free.
Cross Magic
Stitch Crafts Gold (hasn't been updated in a long time, still has a trial version)

Stitch Craft (not to be confused wit Stitch Crafts) has 3 versions for 2009, home, designer and publisher. Cross, quarter, bargello, photo to chart, various back stitches - but no specialty stitches.

Jane Greenoffs Designer Gold from The Cross Stitch Guild (UK) is good. The price is excellent and you can also get the software with a guild membership. The package contains a CD-ROM with videos showing you how to do various stitches. If you want to extend your skills to specialty stitches, this is a good bargain. I have used this software to publish charts (together with Acrobat and MS Office).

PC Stitch, new version October 2008
PC Stitch Pattern Viewer (free)

Stitch R-XP from ILSoft - Vista compatible (not free)

Pattern Maker - this is the best software for designing from scratch at an affordable hobby price in my opinion. It has specialty stitches and page layout tools also. (has trial version and a free viewer)