Here are 5 of the best free embroidery Design Software for Windows that will let you turn any image into a cross-stitch pattern. If you love the art of cross stitch and are looking for free software, this article is for you. The list of free cross stitch design software provided below will fulfill your embroidery needs.
Some of these software come with a number of stitch patterns such as Cross Stitch, Three Quarter Stitch, Quarter Stitch, Half Cross, and Petite Cross Stitch, while some of them come with various types of embroidery views, namely Symbol view, White Symbol view, Color Symbol view, Half Tone view, Full view, Color view, and Stitch Preview.
You can also adjust pixel size, change color, hide or show gridlines, and do more things for your project. Immediately, here are the best free embroidery design software for Windows:
1. KG-Chart LE
KG-Chart LE is one of the best free embroidery/cross stitch design software. Using this free cross stitch software, one can turn any image into an embroidered image in just a few steps. So this is a great free image to convert cross pattern. Just provide the image to be converted to cross stitch.
Let’s have a look at the features offered by this Software:
- This software comes in two different modes for creating stitch patterns namely, Cross Stitch mode and another Stitch mode. Each of these modes contains a number of stitch patterns that will make designing needlepoint easy.
- In Cross Stitch mode, you will find five types of Cross Stitch Patterns, namely, Cross Stitch, Three Quarter Stitch, Quarter Stitch, Half Cross, and Petite Cross Stitch. If you want to design a framed stitched pattern or fill a stitched pattern with a specific shape, that option is also available in this Software. Only two types of shapes are available in this Software: rectangle and ellipse.
- If your design requires stitch patterns other than cross stitch designs, other Stitch modes are provided as well. In this design mode, you will find more than 15 stitch patterns. Some of these patterns are Back Stitch, Straight Stitch, French Knot, Four Side Stitch, CutLine Stitch, etc.
- You can also add comments to your design pattern.
- You can show or hide gridlines and symbols in an image.
- On clicking on the real view option, the Software will show you the real pattern as designed on the fabric.
- You can also change the sheet and thread color.
- This software can enlarge your design up to 10 times the original.
- Eraser is provided in the Software which can erase accidentally stitched patterns or you can just use Undo button.
You can export cross stitch designs in only 8 types of formats, namely Bitmap, JPEG, PNG, TIF, ICON, TGA, PGX, Jpeg-2000.
2. Crosti
Crosti is a free open source cross stitch design software for Windows that allows you to create stitch patterns easily. Using this software, you can convert images into cross stitch patterns. This free cross stitch design software can show detailed cross stitch patterns up to 4 times more than usual.
Let’s see how to use this cross stitch design Software to create a cross stitch image: Start by opening the image that you want to create a cross stitch pattern in the Software. After that, select the detailing options for your image and click on the Create Design button. After clicking the Create Design button, the Software converts the image into a stitched pattern automatically.
Here are some of its features:
- If you want to make single and double stitches on your image, marking options are provided in Software.
- You can change the color and icon of the stitched image. You can also reduce the color in the cross stitch design.
- You can also change the edge width of each square in the stitch pattern according to the thickness or number of strands of thread that you will use to make the cross stitch pattern.
- For your convenience, this free cross stitch software displays images with a number of icons. If you just want to see a grid view of your image, you can hide these icons.
- You can also apply filters to your images. Some of the filters available in this software are Sharpen, Smooth, Blur, Motion Blur, etc.
- You can also add or remove colors.
Once you are done editing, you can save the cross stitch pattern as an image in various formats, like pdf, png, jpg, jpeg, etc. To take a printout of your image, click the print option in the File menu or simply press Ctrl + P Key.
3. Cstitch
Cstitch is another free cross stitch design software on this list which lets you design stitch patterns for any image. Select any image from your gallery to make stitch pattern and open it in Cstitch. This software does not require any installation on your computer as it is an executable file type. You can run it on PC directly without installing it. Explore your creativity by creating stitched images and save them in PDF format.
Some features of this cross stitch design software:
- You can create more than one cross stitch image from one image and switch between them at any time.
- You can zoom in or out of the cross stitch pattern.
- You can choose whether to show or hide the gridlines.
- You can also switch between pattern and grid images.
- The cross stitch pattern created by this Software contains a number of square grids with different icons so that you can create stitch designs easily.
- This software also lets you resize the squares before creating a cross stitch pattern from an image.
- The cross stitch images created by the Software consist of different symbols so that you can easily recognize each part of an image. You can also change the color and symbol of the image.
This software can save cross stitch images to various formats. Some of them are PDF, JPG, JPEG, BMP, PNG, etc.
4. Scheme Maker
Scheme Maker is a free cross stitch pattern software for Windows. One can design a cross stitch pattern from any image in just three simple steps by using this Software. Start by opening the image in the Software, then click on the load button, after that, click on the Detect button, and finally, click on the Lessen button, and finally, you will get the cross stitched image ready for editing. Very simple to use cross stitch converter.
Features offered by Scheme Maker:
- You can change the width and height of the image by increasing or decreasing the number of cells. If you want more detail in the stitched image, increase the number of cells, and vice versa.
- This software shows three types of grids in the image namely, 1 × 1 square grid, 10 × 10 square grid, and center line. You can choose whether to hide or show any or all of them in your image.
- If you want to hide your image, simply deselect “Colors in Cells”.
- You can compare the stitched image with the original at any time while editing.
You can save the final image to many formats. Some of these formats are Bitmap, Portable Pixmap, Pixmap, Icon, PNG, JPG, JPEG, etc.
5. GIMP
GIMP is a very popular free image editing software. You can use GIMP to create cross stitch patterns too. GIMP lets you convert any image into a pixel image so that you can easily create a cross stitch pattern for that image. You can create four types of pixelate patterns for your images, namely, square patterns, hexagonal patterns, octagon and square patterns, and triangle patterns.
You can also adjust the size of each tile in your project as per your convenience. You can also highlight gridlines on your image. When you’re done, take a printout of the image and make your best work.
Here are the steps to convert an image to a cross stitch pattern in GIMP:
- Open the image in Software by clicking the Open option in the File menu or by simply pressing Ctrl + O keys.
- After that, click Filter > Blur > Pixelize.
- Then, click Filter > Distort > Mosaic. This will open a window in front of you where you can adjust the tile size, height, spacing, and color variations as per your project.
- Move the tile slider to 1.00. This makes the shape of each tile perfect.
- Finally, click the OK button.
Congratulations, you have created a pixelated image. Please print it and use it as a pattern to design Cross stitch.
Summary: Those are some of the best embroidery design software. Of the several software above, the Cross Stitch Design Software that I liked the most during testing was KG-Chart LE. I have put this software first in the list because of the features it offers. It comes with a number of hand embroidered stitches which ease the designing process. Some of these embroidery are Cross Stitch, Three Quarter Stitch, Quarter Stitch, Half Cross, and Petite Cross Stitch. You can comment on the designs you made in this Software. You can also erase certain stitches with the help of the eraser provided in the Software.
