@Dave—
Mehdi has a few plug-ins that ship with Xara. Off the top of my head, I think he has Classic Eraser (for making an alpha in an image based on color), but he also offers a lot more Xara compatible plug-ins for free HERE.
You might want to check out "Blots" and "Kaleidoscope" because I think these might give you the seamless tiling you'd want for making textures.
I could be wrong, but they're free. Hey.
-g
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