JuliaSh

The alternatives are plentiful. Based on what you need I presume the features, which are a must are following: vector drawing tools, so that the patters are scalable and applicable everywhere, lower price compared to Adobe Illustrator and clean interface to make the first steps comfortable for any user. In this case I would recommend Amadine - a vector design app for illustration and graphics. There are Mac and iPad/iPhone versions and you can have a free trial from the website and the App Store.