CSG Members' Studio Calculating Design Size and Fabric Requirements

Calculating fabric requirements is something that many stitchers avoid, but it is not difficult and knowing how to do this gives much greater freedom in the fabrics you use and the projects you make. Any project can be adapted to make a smaller or larger design, on a finer or coarser fabric. When you make any quantity of cards, you will want to use a variety of card mounts (or, make your own). If you have a card with a specific size aperture, you can choose a fabric that will make your design fit that aperture.

All counted cross stitch designs are made up of squares or parts of squares, and the fabrics used have the same number of threads (or blocks) in each direction so that you will produce nice square stitches. The number of these fabric threads per inch/2.5 cm (the thread count of the fabric, e.g. 28-count) and the stitch count of a design (the number of stitches by height and width) determine the finished size of the stitched design.

To calculate a design size in inches on an evenweave fabric (including linen) where you are stitching over two threads: divide the stitch count of the design (in each direction) by half the thread count of the fabric (14, in the case of 28-count linen).

To calculate a design size in inches on an evenweave fabric (including linen) where you are stitching over one thread: divide the stitch count by the thread count.

To calculate a design size on aida, divide the stitch count by the thread count.