My first impressions were that it is well presented, I like the little note that comes in the case with the cd giving advice on using it and a £5 discount voucher for any purchases on Cross Stitch Guild website. Plus it installed really quickly, in under 1 minute, which is an added bonus for impatient people like me!

It looks a bit intimidating at first glance but to free-hand draw a design you select the colour you want from the bottom and the stitch from the side and keep the mouse button compressed to start drawing. It works on a grid size of 500 x 500 and has a box in the middle of the screen (location box) that shows you the whole image whist the rest of the screen is zoomed in enough for you to see the detail in what you are doing. You can also click on the location box to see a particular part of the design.

There's also a useful toolbox in the centre of the screen (you can move either box and place them where ever you like) for changing the basic settings, stitch count, measuring unit, background colour etc. You can add or remove the boxes that appear by using the tool bar on the bottom left of the screen. I would advise once you've had a little look through that you edit the toolbar to include the functions you are most likely to need as not all of them are on by default.

The program comes with a series of useful templates to form a starting point for your design, although for some reason you have to rename a template in order to use it. I was a bit confused when first using the template as all the colours on the bottom colour bar turned to black. But I then figured out that it only uses the colours from the template and you then have to click on the black (blank) boxes to add each additional colour you want to use in your design. You can also insert motifs, symbols and text.

Most the options across the top of the screen are pretty self explanatory (eg. View, tools, my stitches) and if you have any problems you can click on ‘help' and search for information to guide you through. The help guide is very useful, I found myself using it a lot at the start but it did clearly explain everything to me.
There is a useful selection of video tutorials, but you have to make sure you still have the disk in for those to work. It would have been useful to have kind of introductory tutorial/guide that automatically loaded up on the first usage to briefly talk you through how to use the software.

I found the stitch library particularly useful; it has very clear diagrams illustrating how to do the stitch. I also love that when you click on the select a colour option it brings up all the different brands of thread so you can choose a colour from your favourite range. Another useful thing is the magic wand tool, it allows you to select any part of the design and just pick it up and move it elsewhere.

My favourite part was the importing of pictures. This was surprising simple to do and with amazing results! Obviously the more detailed the picture the slightly less like the picture it looks but I was amazed by the picture of my sewing machine. My company logo came out amazingly well too (if anyone fancies having a go at it please let me know).

I had a slight problem when opening templates, but they have now added an insert to the case to tell you how to avoid the problem I had.  I also found it annoying that you have to zoom right in to use the flood fill tool (ie. to create large areas of colour) and then it only does the area in view so if you wanted big blocks of colour it would be annoying to have to do it bit by bit.

Overall I would say this is a very useful tool for people who want to have a go at making their own designs. It is easy to use and you can incorporate elements of Jane's designs into your own too. I am new to cross stitch and found it easy to use and understand so I believe it to be suitable for people of all levels. If there's nothing in the shops that catches your eye why not have a go at making your own designs with Jane Greenoff's istitch?

You can purchase istitch from The Cross Stitch Guild for £24.99 by clicking here.