what is pcstitch and where do you get it

It's a cross stitch program for making patterns. It also works very well for making weaving patterns. You can find it at www.pcstitch.com .

what version do you guys like. Is the PRO version overkill???

Jim: I thought it was only used for weaving patters. What else do you use it for?

The program was actually developed for making patterns for doing embroidery on cloth. I first heard about it from Jim a couple or three years ago. I still have PCStitch 6 which is an old program but still works great. It similar to working with a paint program on your computer. You scan a picture and import it to PCStitch. The picture will import over a grid. Every line going across the pattern will be your pattern threads and the columns going from top to bottom will be the background thread. You can pick and choose the colors you want in your pattern. I normally make my patterns 5 squares to an inch and then print the pattern out in three or four sheets which I trim and paste together to make a large pattern. The one thing that I really like is that I can work on coloring a pattern and if not finished, I can save it to finish later. I had a few problems in the beginning but Jim Upton helped me and now it is a breeze to make patterns with it.

I've got version 7 which is fine but I think the Pro version has a few more bells and whistles. I'm sure Jim can elaborate a bit more on it than I can.

Yes, Pro is now the best version. When it first came out it limited the points in the fonts so I wasn't happy with it but an up date took care of that. It's much easier to build a pattern with and will let you put in and change background colors without having any effect on the pattern.

You can try it by going to their web site and downloading the trial version.

There are quite a few of different versions on @#$%& now.