Lacemaker's Mailing List FAQ
Lacemaking on the Internet
Other PC aids for lace and crafts
- IL Soft's Home Page http://www.ilsoft.co.uk/ (ilsoft@easynet.co.uk) IL Soft has 2 software programs for lacemakers, Torchon Lace Designer (simple
program for Torchon pattern creation only), and Lace Designer Gold. Their s-mail address is 5-7 Spinner's Court, West End, Witney, Oxfordshire, OX8 6NJ, England, phone (44) 1993 779274, email isoft@easynet.co.uk. The website contains addresses for local distributors in other countries as well, including:
- Autodesk - ACAD http://www.autodesk.com/prod/dataman/acad.htm When we discussed drafting patterns, we heard that Bridget Cook and many others were using Autocad and Autocad Light with success in making patterns. Neither program is geared to lacemakers, however.
- Tamara noticed in a recent IOLI bulletin, that Trenna Ruffner described her success in making patterns using "Keycad" software that she had obtained for a small fee. Also, an extensive article by Brenda Paternoster in *lace* Vol. 74 (April '94) shows a lace manipulated using a TypeStudio software package.
- Building a screensaver http://www.teleport.com/~pacheco/jr_screensaver/jrscrnsavr.html Chris Pacheco's site has helps for those wanting to make their own screensavers using their own graphics (like scanned lace!).
- Book: Software Directory for Fibre Artists comes well recommended.
- Book: Needlecrafter's Computer Companion http://www.execpc.com/~judyheim/needle.html Check out this page to see if you want the book and accompanying software (cross-stitch charting, quilting, dressmaking). Voilet Aubertin had some good luck with this book getting "more technical" with her crafting.
- A good www search engine: http://www.altavista.digital.com, which Baerbel used to re-find Vermeer's paintings when she lost her note about their location.
- Can't find where you wrote down a friend's email address but don't want to post the message to the whole list? Try http://www.infoseek.com (choose "Search for information about ___ in Email Addresses in the selection box).
- Rosanne McLean of London (RMcLean@aol.com) offers a lace design correspondence course to those who have EasyCad, a relatively inexpensive CAD program. Her course teaches how to make prickings and working diagrams using the program. She has developed macros to make grid- and pattern-production easier.
- Other members mention that Corel Draw v.3, 4, 5, or 7 have worked well for them in their designing (mostly for tatting, but some also for bobbin lace). Corel products are found at this site.
- Still others have used Top Draw.
- Louisa aka Damselfly has used Pattern Maker for making prickings on a grid. It's actually a cross-stitch program, but Louisa says: " I have had quite a bit of success plotting straight Torchon edgings, bookmarks, and insertions with this program using the "french knots" and "free backstitch" features. The "knots" are dots which can be placed at the graph's intersections, in the centre of the squares, or at the halfway point between 2 intersections. These become the pinholes. The "backstitches" are straight lines that can stretch between any of these same points. These become the optional directional lines that help you work the lace. You can use colours for the lines to denote the standard codes for lace stitches. Since this is a graph program not a draw program, you cannot make true curves but fans etc. can be plotted fairly accurately by placing the dots carefully on the correctly-sized grid. Pattern Maker is a Windows program, supports OLE, and imports and exports in several file formats. I've imported a pricking (scanned and saved as a TIFF) underneath the grid and used it as a template, plotting on top of it and changing things as I pleased. "
- Need graphpaper to just the right grid? "Graph Paper Maker v1.0 creates custom graph paper for knitting, cross stitch, etc. You set the horizontal and vertical lines per in inch and print it out on your printer. Great for any type of charting task" You can find it at http://www.freenet.hamilton.on.ca/~ad828/easy.htm.This is "Mom Ware" if you use $5 worth of it, send $5 to his mom!
- Need a grid of dots at just the right angle at just the right spacing for your thread? Steph Peters, a member of Arachne, has many available for you to download, or download her program to generate your own.
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This page was written by Mimi Dillman - send comments to me
at ntrop@ix.netcom.com
This page last updated 27 October 1998