How to Use AranPaint+PLUS Step One Create a palette of stitches. Browse through the Stitch Library to see the full set of stitches available to you. Each time you come across a stitch you want to use in your stitch pattern, click the "Add to Project" button. Once you have added all your stitches, click the "Close" button to go to the main design screen.

Step Two Design the stitch pattern. To design a stitch pattern, select a stitch from the "Stitch Box", then move the mouse around the screen. As you do so, you'll see a small graphic of the selected stitch floating underneath the cursor. Keep moving the mouse until you have the "floating graphic" where you want it, then click the mouse to "paint" it. You can keep on painting the same stitch, or you can choose a different one from the Stitch Box. Keep on painting stitches like this and eventually you'll end up with a virtual stitch pattern! For a full list of other things you can do during the design stage, see the Features page.

As you can see above, "Slip Slip Knit" is selected in the Stitch Box, so a Slip Slip Knit stitch is floating underneath the cursor. Each click of the mouse will add a Slip Slip Knit stitch to your design.

Step Three Document the pattern. Now that you have created your virtual stitch pattern, AranPaint+PLUS knows how to convert it into a symbol chart or to written instructions. When you click "Create Document" from the menu, a dialog appears that lets you specify whether you want the chart, the written instructions, or both. Click the "OK" button and sit back while AranPaint+PLUS creates a document that contains the chart/text, along with everything else you need to know about the pattern. To see what the document for the pattern shown at the right looks like, click here.

A completed stitch pattern design, ready to be documented. You can have either a chart of the pattern, or written instructions, or both!