Cross-stitch pattern maker and stitch tracker
Designer tools
Make a chart in a few steps
The main steps. Custom has every setting.
1. Picture or chart
A photo’s colors are matched to the nearest DMC thread, and a PDF pattern or a picture of a chart opens as a chart. Your files stay on this device.
2. Size
3. Colors
Suggested for this size: 25.
A stitch on its own takes the color around it, so there are fewer single stitches to work.
4. Preview
5. Save, print or track
Print and Track use the chart that’s open. Your charts are saved in this browser.
Threads
Pick a thread to mark only its squares.
Stitching from a tablet or phone? The tracking page fills the screen with this chart, has big buttons, finds your next stitch and keeps the screen on. Marks made there show here too.
Clears progress on every layer, hidden ones too. Undo puts it back.
Pick a tool and a thread above the chart, then click or drag on it. To remove stitches, click Erase above the chart, then click or drag over them. For an empty chart, click New blank chart on the Project tab.
Gradient
Shades run from the thread you’re drawing with to the end thread. The brush reaches the end thread at Brush length, counted from the square you first press. The fill reaches it at the corner where you let go. The shades in between are the nearest DMC colors on screen, and any not yet in the chart join its thread list. Check them against real floss.
Selection
To select, set Tool to Select area and drag across the chart, or hold Shift and press the arrow keys. Delete or Backspace erases the stitches in the selected area, and Undo puts them back. Clear selection takes the outline away and leaves the stitches. It also forgets what you copied and any lettering you made.
Add a thread
Selected thread
Edit the thread that’s picked in the Thread menu above the chart.
Lettering
Click Make lettering, then click the square where the top-left corner of the text goes. At size 1, letters are 7 stitches tall.
Layers
Picture overlay
To trace a picture, preview it on the Make tab at this chart’s size, then click Use as overlay on this chart. The overlay never prints.
Tidy stray stitches
A confetti stitch has no neighbor of the same color above, below or beside it.
At a merge range of 0, only identical colors merge. Higher numbers merge shades further apart, and the thread used more wins. Any group that size or smaller takes the color that touches it most. Set Small group size to 0 to leave groups alone.
Replace a thread
Its stitches and their progress move to the new thread, on hidden layers too. The old thread stays in the list.
Blend two threads
A blend gets one symbol and one row in the thread key. Thread estimates count each of its threads separately.
Colorways
A colorway keeps the thread list as it is now, so you can try other colors and switch back. Applying one leaves your stitches and progress alone.
Chart from a picture or PDF
Use your own artwork or a photo, or open a chart you already have: a PDF pattern, a screenshot of a chart or a photo of a printed one. The file is read on this device and never leaves it.
A PDF pattern keeps the thread numbers and symbols from its key. A screenshot or photo of a chart keeps the chart’s colors, with the nearest DMC numbers and new symbols, because the key in a picture can’t be read. Charts up to 1,000 stitches on each side open here; the Stitchen app opens larger ones.
Projects
Details
A new size adds or trims squares at the right and bottom edges. You’re asked before anything is trimmed.
Open a chart
Paste a chart or backup
Click Check only to see what would open without saving anything. For a full report, use the OXS checker.
The designer handles full crosses only. Other stitch types in a file you open are kept when you download it again, but they don’t show here. A printed chart draws its part stitches, backstitches, knots and beads.
Save a copy
Your projects live only in this browser, and clearing its data erases them. Back up after each session.
A backup reopens here with its layers and progress. A library too large for one file backs up as several, and each opens here. Other cross-stitch programs open OXS files.
Settings in this browser
This browser remembers the chart view, Simple or Custom, the last tab, full screen and hidden tools. Each chart keeps its own layers, overlay and colorways.
Reset puts them back to their defaults and leaves your charts and their progress as they are.
A preset sets the first three choices below and leaves the page map and the page orientation as they are. Tracker-ready prints black and white symbols with no gray progress squares and no picture page, the plainest pages to mark off as you stitch.
Each copy has its numbered chart pages and its own thread key. A page map is the whole chart on one page, marked with the page numbers; a chart that prints on three or more pages starts with one unless you choose otherwise. Automatic turns the paper the way that prints the chart on fewer pages. The shaded edges of each page repeat 2 rows and columns from the pages next to it, so you can line them up. A chart made from a picture can start with that picture. Every page carries a light diagonal StitchenApp watermark. The Chart view setting above the chart changes the screen only.
Free prints are in black and white. A clean print can be in color.
A print this long is too much for a browser in one go, so it prints in parts. Preview and print or save each part in turn.
Clean print
A clean print has no watermark and can be in color. It has the page map and the page orientation chosen above. Stitchen’s print server makes it and sends it to you as a PDF.
Sign in to get a clean print. Your charts stay in this browser.
Have a print code?
A print code gives a set number of clean prints, and you don't need an account to use it. Each print uses one, however many pages it has, and printing again uses another. Prints made with a code are for personal use.
How much thread
Each cross counts as two diagonals on the front and two stitch widths on the back, times its strands, plus the extra thread. That leaves out thread carried between stitches, which varies a lot, so treat these as rough.
Fabric calculator
Evenweave and linen are usually stitched over 2 threads. 28-count over 2 gives 14 stitches per inch, the same as 14-count Aida. To compare common fabrics, use the fabric calculator page.
Chart
Start your chart
Start from a picture, a chart file, the sample heart or a blank grid.
Click or drag over the squares you’ve stitched to gray them out.
On a touch screen, scroll from outside the chart.