# Knitting Design Software - free & low cost



## GrandmaLiz (Dec 31, 2012)

Hi all, 
I found a couple of programs which I haven't seen mentioned on KP before. One is free - I have downloaded it but haven't tried it yet:

Design Knittings with LibreCAD - free Open Source CAD application for
Windows, Apple and Linux. - by Harry Guetter
http://librecad.org/cms/home.html
Manuals - http://www.box.com/s/i0cv6gvgbwlspqnd3pux

The other - EasyKnit - costs £35 (which I think is cheap/reasonable).

http://www.easycross.co.uk/ezk/ezk.html

I have started to 'look' at it. It doesn't have the 'bells and whistles' that DesignaKnit has and garment shapes are limited but it costs much less. It is good for converting graphics into stitch pattern charts but cannot interact with a knitting machine - subsequent designs would need to be transferred to a machine 'manually' (via mylar, punchcard, DAK, PPD).

It would be good for hand knitters who want to design something original or for MK'ers who want something inexpensive to convert graphics to stitches. It can use more graphics formats than DAK or Image2Track. There is a free demo version to try out although some things are disabled. Features include:

Garments - Design your own jumpers, cardigans and vests with ease.
Sizing - Select from the built-in sizes for babies, children, women and men.
Profiles - Create and save your own measurement profiles for later use - i.e. save measurements for friends and family.
Measurements - Alter 15 different measurements including chest, waist, hip, arm length.
Fit - Choose to have the fitting of the garment loose or tight.
Body Shape - Select the required body shape from straight or fitted.
Shoulders - Use shoulder shaping and saddle shoulders if required.
Components - Select from a variety of different components such as sleeves, collars, pockets etc.
Instructions - Knitting instructions automatically generated by the software using the supplied measurements.
Tension square - Ability to change the tension square.
Design panels - Add a design to the panel of the garment using the rectangular grid design mode.
Convert - Photographs and clipart can be converted into picture knit designs matching to the chosen wool charts, resulting in a chart ready to use.
Scanning - Images can be directly scanned into Easy Knit and supports 72 file formats including TIFF, BMP, JPEG and WMF.
Standard editing features - Use standard editing features such as copy, move, cut, paste, flip, mirror, rotate, centre in area, scale up and scale down areas to aid easy design.
Shapes - Numerous shapes can be added to the design including lines, arcs, ellipses, rectangles, stars and curves which can be filled as well.
Edit Area - Edit area option will allow changes to occur only in a desired area.
Auto Repeat - Auto Repeat option which will repeat edits reflected across, down or rotated.
Automatic Shading - Use this option to add some depth to the design, choose one of the effects or move the light source to give the required effect.
Flood Fill - Flood Fill fills areas of the design quickly.
Tools - Designs can be cropped, extended, have rows and columns inserted or deleted, rotated, reflected, scaled or centred.
Extending - Automatic extension of the grid when placing areas which are too large.
Knitted view - Designs can be viewed and printed in different ways including an actual knitted view.
Printout - The size of squares on the printout can be set to produce larger easy to read charts with tiling when printing designs over several pages.
Motifs - Use the motifs from the supplied library along with the ability to add your own.
True Type Fonts - Text can be added quickly and easily to your design by using True Type fonts.
Embroidery - Ability to add embroidery to a design which can be placed anywhere.
Show - Show gives details of yarn usage for each colour.
Pattern Library - User expandable pattern library which can be used to fill areas of the design.
Pattern Line - Handy Pattern Line feature aids quick placement of a pattern band across a garment.
Preview - Once the design has been created for the front, back or sleeves, a preview of it shown in the garment windows.
Design Area - The program automatically generates a design area with the correct shape and number of stitches.
Wool Charts - Numerous wool charts are included, along with the ability to edit the existing charts and add new colours.
Motifs - The program is supplied with over 1000 motifs.


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## mikebkk (Oct 6, 2012)

Thanks for sharing this.


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## Araciel (Apr 2, 2011)

This information seems to apply to machine knitting. But some knitters may be able to use for hand knitting.
Thank you for sharing.


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## Reba1 (Feb 5, 2012)

Thank you for starting this thread. With the demise of KnitWare, I am starting to look at what else is out there. I have a working (for now) FB100 disk drive for my 940, but that is the extent of connectivity for me. Image2track interests me, but I want the garment designing too, not just the image input. 

I would welcome comments and suggestions on other design software out there. I've been reading a lot of this forum to start getting a little better educated.


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## Azzara (Jan 23, 2014)

Reba1 said:


> I would welcome comments and suggestions on other design software out there. I've been reading a lot of this forum to start getting a little better educated.


Garment Designer
http://www.cochenille.com/garment-designer


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## Maryknits513 (Feb 12, 2011)

Reba1 said:


> Thank you for starting this thread. With the demise of KnitWare, I am starting to look at what else is out there. I have a working (for now) FB100 disk drive for my 940, but that is the extent of connectivity for me. Image2track interests me, but I want the garment designing too, not just the image input.
> 
> I would welcome comments and suggestions on other design software out there. I've been reading a lot of this forum to start getting a little better educated.


Stitch Painter by Cochenille if you want to design stitch patterns. I heard that Jos Timmerman made a cable to download designs from Stitch Painter into the knitting machine, but have no information on it.

Win_Crea is a free program made for using with Passaps, and you can download designs into the E6000. The program even has intructions for making your own download cable, saving the knitter lots of money. http://www.offthestreet.net/index.php?N=02

The stitch designs could be used on any machine. You wouldn't be able to download into other machines.


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## tyger777 (Apr 17, 2011)

Thank you for sharing


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