knitCompanion knitting & more

I paid £28 last month for the full version and then noticed yet another payment of £28 was due to go out this month! It’s a useful app but certainly not worth nearly £30 a month.

The app keeps crashing, within minutes of loading it.

Uses battery like it’s streaming or playing a video, etc. cannot be used Picture in Picture while watching something else. An update to fix both these things would be valuable. Very handy for row counts etc, suspect other apps may be easier on battery life.

Can’t even upload a file. You can only add files from a Dropbox account.

Very difficult to use. Poor app. Want my money back. Not helpful very unclear as to how to convert charts to colour etc! Very unhappy

I started knitting a Rowan pattern that I have wanted to knit for ages. It was on a chart - fine - but it was only after I started knitting it that I understood the pattern repeat was not synchronised after the first ten rows. There were six different patterns with five different row repeats: every 5, 6, 12, 14 and 20 rows. How on earth was I going to track these and knit this pattern? Luckily I found KC. I was a bit overwhelmed initially but then found the help page - which is the key. I especially liked the Very Pink tutorials. After a bit of patience and trial & error I was able to get the jumper chart as a pdf and start my first project. I have input linked counters and actions and with my marked chart find it a doddle now to knit my jumper. I genuinely think it would have been too difficult for me without KC. It’s a real game changer and has made knitting for me so much easier and an enjoyable experience again. My only gripe was uploading the chart. I used the scanner on notes on my iPad to create the pdf from the Rowan magazine page but I would have liked a tool to completely straighten the chart on the screen before converting it. It took me quite a few tries to get a good straight scan that worked and didn’t produce a chart with a wonky highlighted row.

It’s not an easy or intuitive app to use, but once you get the hang of how to put charts and keys, written instructions etc into a project, it’s a very helpful tool to have. The ability to colour code odd/even rows, and reverse the colours so the background is coloured and the row to knit is clearly shown is really great. I don’t use the tools that auto-count various parts of charts much, so can’t comment on them. Being able to zoom into charts and set up multiple counters is great. The negatives: it’s very hard to learn to use, even with videos and advice, so don’t expect to be able to pick it up and use it immediately. It has a habit of utterly forgetting everything and taking repeated poking/restarting to find projects and pdfs again (I suspect an issue with the interface between the app and Dropbox, as my wifi is fine and no other apps have issues). It also absolutely drinks battery, so make sure you take a plug and cable with you if you want to use it. When titling pages in a pattern you can only use letters, no numbers or punctuation, which can be annoying too. And finally, the app owners can be stand-offish, especially when it comes to dealing with app issues or pricing. I originally bought this app when it was first released, at a cost of £14, with an agreement that all updates would be included. After two or three revisions and a new version of the app, I’m now having to pay £20 a year. This caused a lot of bad feeling with early adopters who bought and tested the app when it was way more expensive than most. To sum up, it’s helpful to have and I rather prefer to use it for projects than not, but it’s issues are obvious, very annoying, and don’t seem to ever be fixed. 6/10.

The app is brilliant when it works. But every few weeks, it gets very glitchy and won’t do what I’m telling it to do. For example, I I got zoom in and the pattern jumps all over the place. A bit if work and this app would be 5 stars.

It’s like getting a new phone, a lot of the helpful stuff you learn as you go…plus verypinkknits has a whole load of excellent YouTube videos to help you get going.

No idea how to work the app as it doesn’t come with instructions and isn’t exactly user friendly. After watching tube videos I’m still in the dark about most of the functions but muddled through. I was working on a Cross stitch and recorded each stitch only to find all my work had been removed and not saved next time I loaded the app so had to work out where I was again. The tools for cross stitch also missed finding the same symbols so I had to go through and manually mark them. Lasted two days and removed the app and went back to paper charts. Certainly not worth £20 per year, rubbish app for cross stitching or diamond painting conversions.