Cross stitch pattern maker

Choosing the size and number of colours

Width and colours pull in opposite directions from your patience. A wider chart keeps more detail but takes longer to stitch; more colours keep subtle shading but mean more skeins and more thread changes. These are good starting points:

Turn on Remove lone stitches (it's on by default): single stitches in a sea of another colour are slow to sew and barely change the picture. Leave Blend colours off unless you want a painterly, speckled look; it scatters colours to imitate shades that aren't in the key.

If one area looks wrong, press Edit above the chart. Paint single stitches with any thread from the key, replace every stitch of one colour with another, or merge a colour you don't want into its closest neighbour.

Tips for photos that make good patterns

• One clear subject. Crop away everything you won't miss. The subject should fill most of the frame.
• Even daylight. Harsh shadows and flash glare become hard-edged blotches of dark and white thread.
• A plain background. It can be left unstitched, which saves hours and makes the subject stand out.
• Strong contrast. A dark cat on a dark sofa will merge into one colour. If the chart looks flat, raise the contrast in More settings.
• Sharp focus where it matters. Eyes in a portrait, petals in a flower. Blur elsewhere is fine.

Printing and reading your chart

Each square on the chart is one full cross stitch, and its symbol tells you the thread from the key. Bold lines mark every 10 stitches so you can count quickly, and the arrows on the edges point to the centre. Fold your fabric in four, crease it lightly, and start stitching from where the creases meet.

Big charts are split across several pages. Each page says which columns and rows it holds and shows a small map of where it sits in the whole chart. The black and white option prints symbols only, which is easier to read under a lamp and much kinder to your ink.

How PatternSquare compares

There are good tools for this already, and the best one depends on what you need. Here is an honest summary, based on how each one generally works; check their sites for current details.

Where PatternSquare falls short today: it makes full cross stitches only, with no backstitch outlines or fractional stitches, and it doesn't save charts between visits. If you need those, a dedicated editor is the better choice.