Photo2PatternFree cross stitch size calculator
Cross stitch size calculator, both directions
Type the two stitch counts printed on your chart, choose a cloth, and this returns the finished measurement in inches and centimeters at once — with the threads-per-stitch term that makes 28-count linen land exactly where 14-count aida does. It then shows the same chart on all fourteen counts a shop stocks, so the whole range is on one screen before any money is spent. It costs nothing, wants no account, and runs in this tab. Work it the other way if the space is what is fixed: give the width and height you have to fill and the page names the cloth that fits and the coarser one that overruns, with both measured.
- 100% free
- No signup
- 14 fabric counts
- Inches and centimeters
- Solves either direction
What a chart means when it prints a size and names no cloth
This is how 14-count is normally worked, so the figure below is the one the pattern writer had in mind.
Stitched area on 14-count, 14 stitches to the inch
- Finished size
- 10.71 × 8.57 in
- 27.2 × 21.8 cm
- Stitches in the chart
- 18,000
- 150 across × 120 down, whatever cloth it goes on
- One stitch measures
- 1.81 mm
- 91.8 square inches of stitching in total
Both figures come from the same millimeter value rather than from each other, so the centimeters are not a rounded inch measurement converted a second time. The count itself is nominal: a bolt labeled 14 can weave a little coarser or finer across its width, and a piece worked at a tight tension comes off the frame under size until it is washed and blocked. Measure the cloth over four inches and divide before you cut anything you cannot replace.
The same chart on every cloth that is stocked
All 14 counts, worked over one
| Count | Stocked as | Stitches / in | Finished |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | Aida | 6 | 25.00 × 20.00 in63.5 × 50.8 cm |
| 8 | Aida | 8 | 18.75 × 15.00 in47.6 × 38.1 cm |
| 11 | Aida | 11 | 13.64 × 10.91 in34.6 × 27.7 cm |
| 14 — the count selected above | Aida | 14 | 10.71 × 8.57 in27.2 × 21.8 cm |
| 16 | Aida | 16 | 9.38 × 7.50 in23.8 × 19.1 cm |
| 18 | Aida | 18 | 8.33 × 6.67 in21.2 × 16.9 cm |
| 20 | Aida | 20 | 7.50 × 6.00 in19.1 × 15.2 cm |
| 22 | Hardanger | 22 | 6.82 × 5.45 in17.3 × 13.9 cm |
| 25 | Evenweaveusually worked over two | 25 | 6.00 × 4.80 in15.2 × 12.2 cm |
| 27 | Evenweaveusually worked over two | 27 | 5.56 × 4.44 in14.1 × 11.3 cm |
| 28 | Linen or evenweaveusually worked over two | 28 | 5.36 × 4.29 in13.6 × 10.9 cm |
| 32 | Linen or evenweaveusually worked over two | 32 | 4.69 × 3.75 in11.9 × 9.5 cm |
| 36 | Linenusually worked over two | 36 | 4.17 × 3.33 in10.6 × 8.5 cm |
| 40 | Linenusually worked over two | 40 | 3.75 × 3.00 in9.5 × 7.6 cm |
Going from 6-count to 40-count divides the finished measurement by 6.7 without touching a single stitch of the chart. That is the whole lever this page describes: the cloth sets the scale, the chart sets the detail, and no amount of finer cloth adds a stitch that was never charted.
Or start from the size and work back
A frame aperture, a card window or a space on a wall is fixed before the cloth is chosen. Give the space and this finds the cloth, using the same 150 × 120 stitches from above.
To fit 8.00 × 10.00 in (20.3 × 25.4 cm)
- Stitches to the inch needed
- 18.75
- The width is the side that decides it — the other one finishes with room to spare.
- Which is a count of
- 18.75
- worked over one block or thread. Nobody weaves a fractional count, which is why the two rows below matter more than this one.
Buy 20-count aida — it fits.
20 stitches to the inch finishes at 7.50 × 6.00 in (19.1 × 15.2 cm), leaving 0.50 in across and 4.00 in down unstitched inside the space.
The next cloth down, 18-count aida, overruns it.
At 18 stitches to the inch the same chart finishes 8.33 × 6.67 in, which is 0.33 in too wide and 0.00 in too tall. It is listed because it is the coarser, easier cloth and the overhang is sometimes small enough to design around.
These two rows are the whole reason a size calculator is worth having: the count a space asks for is a fraction, and the shelf holds whole numbers. Everything above is the stitched area on its own, so add the cloth you have to hold on to before you cut — the aida cloth calculator works that rectangle out, and it is larger than most people guess.
How to size a chart before you buy the cloth
How many threads one stitch swallows is where linen stitchers and wrong answers part company.
Take the two stitch counts off the chart
A chart states its size as a pair of whole numbers — 150 wide by 120 high — and that pair never changes, whatever cloth it ends up on. Do not use the finished measurement printed under the designer's photograph: that is the size on the cloth they happened to choose, and it is the thing you are here to recompute. If your chart came from a photograph you converted yourself, the pair is the grid you set when you converted it.
Say how many threads one stitch swallows
Aida is blocked, so one stitch takes one block and the answer is stitches divided by count. Linen and evenweave are not blocked, so a stitch is normally worked over two threads and the count has to be halved before it means anything. This single term is why 28-count linen finishes at exactly the size 14-count aida does, and why a calculator that ignores it hands linen stitchers an answer that is half the truth.
Read it forwards, then read the table backwards
The headline figure is the stitched area on the cloth you picked. Under it, the same chart is worked out on all fourteen counts that are stocked, so you can see the whole range the design could occupy before you commit money to one of them. If the size is the fixed part — a frame aperture, a card window, a gap on a wall — put it into the panel at the foot instead, and the page names the cloth that fits and the coarser one that overruns, with the overrun measured.
Technical specifications
| Cloth counts in the table | 14, from 6-count binca to 40-count linen — the range mills sell as yardage rather than as a special order. Aida, Hardanger, evenweave and linen are labeled separately because the count means a different thing in each |
|---|---|
| Threads per stitch | 1 or 2, and the control is not cosmetic: 28-count over two and 14-count over one are the same 14 stitches to the inch. Every count carries the working it is conventionally used at, and the page says so when you override it |
| The arithmetic | inches = stitches ÷ (count ÷ threads per stitch), with 1 in fixed at 25.4 mm. The millimeter value is what every comparison uses; the inch and centimeter figures are both derived from it rather than from each other |
| Chart sizes accepted | 1 to 2,000 stitches on a side. 2,000 × 2,000 is four million stitches — the arithmetic still runs and the piece is still a decade of evenings |
| Solving from a size | Give a width and a height in inches or centimeters and the page returns the stitches per inch needed to two decimal places, which side of the design governs it, and the two workings woven either side of that figure with the clearance or the overrun on each |
| Range the reverse solve covers | 3 to 40 stitches to the inch — 6-count over two at the coarse end, 40-count over one at the fine end. Outside that the page refuses and says which direction the chart has to move in |
| What is deliberately not counted | The unstitched border. No hem, hoop, lacing or framing allowance is added anywhere on this page, so nothing here is a rectangle to cut |
| Where the sums run | In this tab. There is no request, no stored figure and nothing carried in the address bar, so a chart you have not published stays unpublished |
Frequently asked questions
Why does 28-count linen finish the same size as 14-count aida?
Because a stitch on linen is normally worked over two threads, and 28 threads to the inch worked two at a time is 14 stitches to the inch. Count describes the weave, not the stitch: aida counts blocks and one block is one stitch, while linen and evenweave count individual threads and a stitch spans two of them. Every evenweave count on this page therefore behaves like the count half its size until you tell it otherwise. The pairs that catch people out are 32 with 16, 36 with 18 and 40 with 20 — the same finished piece, a completely different needle and a completely different afternoon.
The count I need is 18.75 and nobody sells that. What do I do?
You accept the nearest count that is woven and take the size it gives, which is why this page names two cloths instead of returning a fraction. Fabric count is not a dial; it is a short list of whole numbers that mills weave, and the arithmetic that produces 18.75 has no way of knowing that. The finer of the two named cloths always fits inside the space with a margin the page measures for you, and the coarser one always overruns by an amount it also measures — pick on which of those two you can live with, because the third option is redrawing the chart.
Does this figure include the fabric I have to leave around the design?
No. Everything on this page is the stitched area alone, edge stitch to edge stitch, with nothing added for the border. That border is not a rounding allowance either — a hoop mount or a framer wants several inches of plain cloth on every side, which on a small design can be more cloth than the design occupies. The rectangle to buy is worked out on the aida cloth calculator, and it is deliberately a separate page because the two numbers get confused constantly and only one of them is arithmetic.
My finished piece measured smaller than the figure here. What went wrong?
Almost certainly nothing, and the difference is tension rather than arithmetic. Count is nominal: a bolt sold as 14-count is woven to a target and can measure a little either side of it across its own width, so measuring your own cloth over four inches and dividing is worth the minute it takes. On top of that, a piece worked at a firm tension comes off the frame pulled in, and it comes back to size when it is washed and blocked. Measure a finished piece before blocking and it will read small; measure it after and it should land within a few millimeters of the figure above.
Does using three strands instead of two change the finished size?
No. Strand count changes coverage, not geometry — the holes in the cloth do not move because you put more cotton through them. Three strands on 14-count fills the block more completely and makes the piece look denser and slightly raised, and it uses roughly half as much thread again, but the outermost stitch is still in the same hole it would have been in with one strand. The only things that change the finished measurement are the stitch count in the chart and the number of stitches per inch in the cloth.
Can I make a chart smaller without dropping stitches from it?
Yes, and moving to a finer count is the only way to do it. The stitch count is fixed by the design, so the cloth is the sole lever you have: the same chart is 3.3 times narrower on 40-count linen worked over two than on 6-count binca, and 6.7 times narrower if you worked that linen over a single thread. There is a floor to it, though. Past about 18 stitches to the inch you are down to one or two strands and a size 26 needle instead of the 24 that 14-count takes, and no cloth on the list goes beyond 40 threads to the inch at all. Below that floor the honest answer is a chart with fewer stitches in it, not a finer cloth.
How do I get the centimeter figure right?
Take it from the millimeter measurement, never from the rounded inch figure. One inch is 25.4 millimeters exactly, and the usual mistake is converting a displayed 8.6 inches rather than the 8.571 that produced it — which puts you a millimeter and a half out before you have cut anything. Both units on this page are derived independently from the same underlying millimeter value for that reason. If you are working to a metric frame aperture, type the aperture into the panel at the foot in centimeters and let the reverse solve do the conversion once rather than three times.
About fabric count, and what the number on the bolt measures
Count is a weaving specification that got adopted as a sizing control, and almost every confusion in cross stitch comes from that second job being an accident. The number on the bolt says how many units of weave sit in one inch — but the unit is not the same thing in every cloth. Aida is woven in blocks: four threads grouped together with a visible hole at each corner, one block to a stitch, which is exactly why beginners are started on it and why the arithmetic there is a single division. Linen and evenweave are woven plainly, one thread at a time, with nothing telling the needle where to go. The convention that grew up around them is to work each stitch over two threads, which manufactures a stable cell out of a flat weave — and quietly halves the count. A designer writing “28-count” on a chart means 14 stitches to the inch and assumes you know it.
The second thing worth knowing is that the count list is short and fixed. Mills weave 11, 14, 16, 18, 25, 28, 32, 36 and a handful of others; they do not weave 18.75 because a frame aperture asked for it. Most size calculators quietly hide this by returning a decimal and stopping, which is the point at which the tool has handed the hard part back to you. Solving from a target size is only useful if the answer is something a shop can sell, so this page returns the two workings either side of the figure and measures what each one costs you — a little empty cloth inside the aperture, or an overhang you would have to design around. Where the stitch count itself is still up for negotiation, it is easier to set the grid first on the cross stitch pattern maker and bring the pair of numbers back here, and lettering behaves the same way — the alphabet on the cross stitch text generator has a fixed height in stitches, so a name is sized by the cloth exactly as a picture is.
Every craft on this site is the same problem with a different pitch. An aida block at 14-count is 1.81 mm across; a midi fuse bead on the Perler bead page is 5 mm whatever you do to it; a character cell in the ASCII art generator is whatever your monospaced font says it is. In every case the grid is fixed by the pattern and the finished size is fixed by the material, and the only freedom is which material you choose. Cross stitch is unusual in offering fourteen of them along one axis, which is a luxury and the reason this page exists — it is genuinely possible to make the same design a coaster or a cushion front without redrawing a single stitch. What it is not possible to do is change how much detail the design holds. That was decided when the chart was made, and a finer cloth shrinks a blurry face into a smaller blurry face.
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Where these figures are worked out
Nothing you type here leaves the tab. The arithmetic runs in JavaScript on your own machine — there is no server to send it to, no account to sign in to and nothing stored between visits. Close the tab and nothing of it remains.
Nothing is uploaded because there is nothing to upload — the inputs here are three numbers and a dropdown, and a chart you have not released stays unreleased because its stitch count never leaves the address bar it was never put into. The printed sheet carries the finished sizes and the fourteen-count table without the controls, the navigation or the advertising, so what goes to the shop is the pair of figures and the row you chose.