I am going to make a quilt. Something I have been interested in for a long time, but the time has come and I am deciding on a design. It will only be a lap quilt, and I will probably do a cushion or two first for practice. I got the graph paper out and started designing. Of course it was a laborious process and at the back of my mind, I thought there must be a programme out there for the computer which would speed things up. I was too wrapped up in what I was doing so just continued with my crayons, colouring squares and counting, until my OH said he thought there must surely be a programe. I did see if I could use Corel Painter for it, but it didn’t seem to do what I wanted, so I went to CNET and did a search and I found the perfect programme in the hobbies section. Its called Creative Designs Chartmaker and you can use it for embroiderie, cross stitch, quilting, beading etc. I have had great fun playing with it, designing all sorts of cross stitch motifs, and quilt patterns. It is available as a free trial for a month, and then you have to buy it, (if you wish). Its about £15 I think, but it is so easy to use, and perfect for the job, so I will be buying it. Check it out if you need something to help design patterns. I have cross stitch design CDs, but this is much easier to use, for designing from scratch. You don’t have the features like downloading your own pictures etc. That’s not what its for, but for saving time with the old graph paper. you can’t beat it!