Cross-stitch fabric and thread calculator
Work out how big a cross-stitch will be, how much fabric to buy, and how much thread each colour needs, for any pattern and any fabric. Opened from one of our patterns, it fills in that pattern’s stitch count for you.
Fabric size
How big your finished piece will be, and how much fabric to buy.
Enter your pattern’s stitch count to see the sizes.
Thread (floss)
How many skeins one colour needs. Run it once for each colour.
Adjust assumptions
Enter the number of stitches in this colour to see an estimate.
How the fabric size is worked out
Finished size in inches = stitches ÷ fabric count. Fabric count is the number of stitches per inch, so a design 140 stitches wide is 10 inches (25.4 cm) wide on 14 count Aida, and about 7.8 inches (19.8 cm) on 18 count.
Evenweave and linen are usually stitched over two threads, which halves the effective count: 28 count stitched over two finishes the same size as 14 count Aida.
The fabric to buy adds your spare margin to every side. Three inches (7.5 cm) is a good allowance for hooping while you stitch and framing afterwards. Sizes are rounded up, because fabric that’s a little too big can be trimmed and fabric that’s too small can’t. There’s more in our guide to working out the finished size.
How the thread estimate works
Each full cross stitch uses two diagonals of thread on the front and a little more travelling across the back, so the thread per stitch depends on how big each square of your fabric is. The estimate multiplies that by the number of stitches and strands, then allows for:
- Working lengths: thread cut into 45 cm lengths, with 7.5 cm of each lost to the needle, starting and finishing.
- Slack and travel: an extra 15%, because thread is never pulled perfectly straight.
- Skeins: a standard skein of six-stranded cotton, about 8 metres long.
On those defaults, one skein covers roughly 2,000 full stitches on 14 count Aida with two strands. You can change any of them under “Adjust assumptions”.
It’s an estimate: your tension, how often you start and finish, and how you travel between stitches all make a difference, so the skein count is always rounded up. For large areas of a single colour, such as a background, an extra skein is cheap insurance against a dye-lot mismatch later.
Where to find the stitches for each colour
Every Chart Chic pattern’s key lists how many stitches each colour uses, so you can copy the number straight across. Many other designers’ keys do too. If yours doesn’t, an estimate from the chart is fine. Work out roughly what share of the design a colour covers, then multiply the design’s width by its height and take that share: a colour filling about a quarter of a 100 x 100 stitch design is around 2,500 stitches.
New to all this? Start with what you need to start cross-stitching or our guide to choosing a fabric count.