Plastic Canvas Design Studio

Requires: Windows 95/98, 8 MB RAM, Mouse, 15 MB Free Disk Space, CD-ROM, Printer

Description:

"Plastic Canvas has never been this much fun!" is what the makers of Plastic Canvas Design Studio say on their box. Instead of purchasing kits from the store that someone else has designed, become involved with creating designs that you want to stitch!

You can create your own patterns from scratch or import a picture from graphics on your hard drive or from any TWAIN compatible input device such as a digital camera or scanner. Choose from a variety of stitches, or create your own. Have fun creating projects for you, your family, and friends to stitch with Plastic Canvas Design Studio. There is even a beginner project included in the box with canvas, pattern, yarn, and a needle.

Features:

• Design your own plastic canvas patterns
• Variety of import options
• Use standard stitches or create your own
• Pattern designing up to 999 x 999 stitches
• Up to 40 colors can be used in each pattern
• Select from available colors of J&P Coates, Red Heart, or basic colors
• Create your own color palette
• Create patterns from text
• Color or black and white printing
• Video instructions to teach techniques
• Rainbow project is included in the box

Technical Aspects:

We have had some problems when resizing our diagram that the whole design just disappears from the screen! If you choose to UNDO the last command, your design will reappear. Sometimes you can then resize again and it will work. A few e-mails to technical support gave us a response that they were surprised by this bug. The first e-mail promised a fix within a few weeks. Subsequent e-mails reported the fix would not be in the near future. It was explained that they were not saying that I nor my problem was not important to them, but that they did not have the resources to resolve it at this time.

Report and Conclusions:

I would have loved to have requested a Gold Award for this program. However, when technical support e-mailed me back with an apology that they "do not have enough resources to resolve it at this time", I could not in good conscience ask for this award. Granted I do not know what other priorities have come up, but I, as a consumer felt a bit more than disappointed. I do hope that they are able to get this problem resolved in the near future because I do believe they have a program with a lot of promise.

I'd like to see a future edition that would give an easy way to create a one page export of the design, yarn color guide, and directions. This feature would make it easy to create your own pattern book or web page. I was able to create a web page with the program, however, I had to import individual sections into a graphics program and perform a screen shot of the yarn palette. That was quite a bit of work, but it can be done. I would also like to see a DMC floss color palette included in the program.

I have included the link to the Plastic Canvas Designs that I have created. To find these, please click here. In conclusion, if you can put up with an occasional disappearing design that will reappear on an UNDO command, then you will enjoy the program. It is a fun program to use despite the problems that the program is having.