Floss calculator
How many skeins of floss do I need?
Enter how many full cross stitches a color has, your fabric and the strands you stitch with. The pattern maker does this for every color in a chart, but it's handy for patterns you bought.
Stitches per skein
Full crosses one skein covers, by fabric and number of strands. Round up: running out halfway through a sky is how dye-lot stripes happen.
| Fabric | 1 strand | 2 strands | 3 strands |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11-count Aida | 2,870 | 1,435 | 956 |
| 14-count Aida | 3,652 | 1,826 | 1,217 |
| 16-count Aida | 4,174 | 2,087 | 1,391 |
| 18-count Aida | 4,696 | 2,348 | 1,565 |
| 28-count evenweave, over two | 3,652 | 1,826 | 1,217 |
| 32-count linen, over two | 4,174 | 2,087 | 1,391 |
Bold is the usual strand count for that fabric.
How it's worked out
A skein of DMC or Anchor stranded cotton is 8 meters (8.7 yards) of six strands twisted together, so 48 meters of single strand.
One full cross uses two diagonals on the front and roughly two stitch-lengths travelling on the back, which is about 4.8 times the width of one square, for each strand in the needle. On 14-count Aida a square is 1.8 mm wide, so a cross with two strands takes about 1.75 cm of floss.
On top of that we add half again (50%) for starting and finishing tails, travelling between areas and the odd unpicked stitch. That lands 14-count with two strands at about 1,826 crosses a skein, in line with what stitchers usually quote. Confetti-heavy charts with lots of single stitches use more; big blocks of one color use less.
Half stitches and backstitch
A half stitch uses a little under half the thread of a full cross. Backstitch is short: measure the outline length and add a third.
Need fabric too? The fabric size calculator gives finished size and how much to cut. Making your own pattern? The pattern maker lists skeins for every thread automatically.