Good ol’ MS Paint
I learned a valuable lesson. After having to rip out stitches while finishing my name, I realized I needed some way to plan out this collage of mashed together small cross stitch patterns.
So I thought: Let me try out one of those fancy, professional looking cross stitch pattern programs. I tried out “BlendThreads” since it was free and I didn’t want to commit to anything before getting a real taste of what the software would be like. It felt way too complicated and I hated it.
So I went back to Paint, the program I’ve been using for years to do my pixel art patterns. And I mean, I’ve got the original patterns saved on Pinterest or in a book, so I can always reference these when it comes to the finer details of back stitching and partial stitches.
For spacial planning, Paint would work just fine.