New Composer Patterns
Hi Everyone,
You may have noticed I haven’t posted on this site for quite some time. ‘Life Happened’ as it sometimes does and changed my plans.
It reminds me of a similar time, many years ago, when the Great Composer series of Cross Stitch patterns was first born. It all began when I was learning piano and both my children were learning music at school (keyboard, trombone, violin and flute). I didn’t continue with the piano – yes, I know…. silly me. Same scenario, I had plans but ‘Life Happened’ and my plans got sidetracked. Anyway, despite the years passing, I still love the Great Composers and piano and have always wanted to get back to learning piano again one day. Well, at the risk of repeating myself, ‘Life’ happened again. This time, I decided I just needed to get myself into gear and get back to learning piano, otherwise ‘it’s never going to happen’. That is a couple of weeks down the track as yet, but IT IS going to happen:)
That commitment has, in turn, re-ignited my passion to get these Great Composer patterns, all 36 of them, each in 4 colourways up and running.
Initially….
I had completed all the patterns many years ago in a programme called Easy Cross. This is a brillant embroidery design programme. Somewhere along the pathway of upgrading computers, I lost all those patterns. Along with that, Easy Cross was no longer available for purchase. When Easy Cross was available, you could also purchase Add-On modules for other Embroidery types e.g. Blackwork and Hardanger. This feature is still not available in any other software prgramme today, at least, not that I am aware of. I no longer had the patterns that I had created initially, but I did have the disks so that I could reload Easy Cross on my current PC. Yes, I did say disks :)!
So, I could just reload the programme -Yes?
Now, the problem was (and still is) that Easy Cross won’t run on anything higher than Windows 7. My current PC is running Windows 10. So half a dozen or so years back, I purchased a second hand PC, with Windows 7. I then installed Easy Cross and all the Add-On modules that I have.
When I had initially designed those patterns all those years ago, I had printed them all out. In another Cross Stitch programme that I had purchased in the interim, I was able to scan each pattern in and add the scanned image in as a ‘gridded backdrop’ behind the actual design page of the new programme. Then, I was able to add the stitches to the new pattern in the new prgramme one stitch at a time. Was this tedious and time consuming? Yes, it was, but I was determined. Now the problem was that I had the new patterns in the new programme, but I could not create multiple colourways in the one pattern in the new programme.
Thankfully, the programmer for Easy Cross and the programmer for the new software programme knew each other. Together, they tried to get EasyCross to run on Windows 10 but were not successful. They were able to code the new programme so that the files could be imported and read in Easy Cross if necessary. Yeah for me 🙂
The Next Step….
So, next step, you guessed it, I imported all the files back into Easy Cross and created each of the ‘full-size’ and each of the ‘half-size’ patterns in four colourways. As the original patterns were created at least 25 years or so ago, I wanted to update the colour schemes for each pattern so I added that to my ‘to do’ list as well.
The image above shows a WIP (Work In Progress) that will eventually have 36 half-size composers, in different colourways, worked on a cross stitch ‘afghan rug’, using 3 strands of DMC threads. My plan, is to make this into a quilt – not too sure how that is going to work out for now, but I will work the details out as I go along:). This will be in the original colourways I designed these patterns in. The ‘new’ patterns, both full-size and half-size patterns, have been created in more modern colourways.
So, major happy dance from me, I have now completed all the updated Great Composer patterns, both full size and half-size, each in four modern colourways. All patterns are now posted in my Etsy shop here. Each pattern is available for immediate download as a digital file. Why not create a series of cross stitches of your favourite composer in various colourways? Alternatively, create a series of cross stiches of different composers in your favourite colourway? The choice is your.
Happy stitching:)