Your pattern
14 stitches per inch
Cut at least this size. 3 in (7.5 cm) per side leaves room for a hoop, framing and finishing.
The hoop clears the whole design (its diagonal) with fabric showing all round; the frame leaves about 1 in (2.5 cm) of mat.
Floss needed
Enter the stitch count for each color from your pattern's legend.
- 1.5 skeins · buy 2
- 0.5 skeins · buy 1
About 1,650 stitches per skein with these settings. This is an estimate: tension, tails and how you travel between stitches all change it, so round up and buy from one dye lot.
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Make a pattern freeHow the calculations work
Finished size
Divide the stitches by the fabric count. A 140 × 140 pattern is 10 × 10 in on 14 count, 8.75 in on 16 count and 7.78 in on 18 count. The chart and the number of stitches stay the same; only the finished size changes. On evenweave or linen stitched over two threads, use half the count: 28 count over two works like 14 count Aida.
Fabric to buy
Add a border to every side of the finished size. 3 in (7.5 cm) is the safe default: enough to hoop without crushing the stitching, mount, frame or finish the piece, and fix a mistake near the edge. If you'll frame without a hoop, 2 in (5 cm) is usually enough.
Floss
A standard skein is 8 m of six strands twisted together, so 48 m of single strand. A full cross on 14 count uses roughly 9 mm of each strand on the fabric; add the thread that travels between stitches and your tails, and with 2 strands one skein covers about 1,650 stitches, more on higher counts (about 2,100 on 18 count). Backstitch uses 1 strand, so a skein goes about twice as far. Half and quarter stitches use roughly half and a third of a full cross.
Hoop and frame
A round hoop has to clear the whole design, corner to corner, so it's sized from the diagonal, not the longest side. Never clamp a hoop over finished stitches. Frames are picked from common standard sizes with about 1 in (2.5 cm) of mat or fabric showing.