Glossary

The words a cross-stitch pattern uses.

A pattern is written in a small vocabulary that nobody explains to you, because everyone who already stitches knows it. Here is the whole of it, in plain words, with no assumption that you have stitched before.

29 terms.

A term is on this page if you would actually meet it reading a pattern or using this app.

The stitches

What goes in a square.

Almost every square of almost every pattern is one whole cross. The rest of these exist for the places a square is too blunt.

Cross stitch

One X, filling one square of the grid. It is the whole craft: a pattern is a map of which colour goes in which square.

Fractional stitch

A stitch that fills part of a square instead of all of it. You use them for a curve or a point that whole squares turn into a staircase.

A square can be cut along either diagonal, and either side of the cut can hold a thread. Every fractional stitch is some version of that.

Half stitch

One leg of the X instead of both, running corner to corner.

Three-quarter stitch

A half stitch with a quarter added beside it, so three of the four corners are covered. The commonest way to soften a diagonal edge.

It is drawn across half its square and costs about what a full cross costs. Drawn area on a chart is a convention and not a measure of thread.

Quarter stitch

A quarter of a square, sitting in one corner of it.

Petite stitch

A small complete cross worked inside one quarter of a square. Not the same thing as a quarter stitch, which is a single leg. We do not make these.

Backstitch

A straight line stitched over the top of the finished cross stitch. Outlines, lettering, whiskers, anything that needs an edge the grid cannot give you.

It is charted as lines between grid points rather than as filled squares, so it can run anywhere, including across the middle of one.

French knot, bead, sequin

Decorations added on top of the stitching. We do not draw them, but a pattern that already has them keeps them, and the PDF says what it could not draw rather than silently dropping it.

The fabric

What you stitch on, and how big it comes out.

The cloth decides the size of the finished piece, and it is the part people get caught by, because the same chart on two fabrics is two different objects.

Cloth count

How many stitches fit in an inch of the cloth. Higher count means smaller stitches and a smaller finished pattern.

It is the single number that decides how big your pattern comes out. The same chart on 14 count and on 18 count is two quite different objects.

Aida

The usual cross-stitch cloth. It is woven in little blocks with a clear hole at each corner, so one stitch is one block and you can see where the needle goes.

Evenweave and linen

Finer cloth with no blocks in it, so you count threads instead. Almost always stitched over two threads at a time.

Over two

Stitching each cross over two threads of the cloth rather than one. Twenty-eight count linen worked over two gives you fourteen stitches to the inch, so it counts as fourteen everywhere in this app.

Finished size

How big the stitched picture will be. Stitches across divided by the cloth count is the width in inches, and the same down for the height.

It never includes the spare cloth you need round the edge for the hoop and the framing. Add that yourself.

The threads

What you stitch with, and how much to buy.

DMC

The thread brand nearly every chart is written in. A pattern that says 310 means DMC 310, and any shop that sells cross stitch has it.

Our table holds 482 of them, and that is the list a picture gets matched against.

Floss

Another word for the thread. A skein of floss is six fine strands lightly twisted together, and you pull out the number you want.

Strands

How many of those six you put in the needle. Two is the usual choice for cross stitch on fourteen count. Fewer gives a lighter, finer look and uses less thread.

Skein

The little bundle of thread you buy, one colour. A chart tells you how many of each you need so you can shop once.

One skein covers roughly 2,600 stitches at two strands on fourteen count. That number was measured across 86 thread rows of real patterns rather than guessed.

Blend

Two different threads in the needle at once, so one square holds a shade that sits between two real skeins.

Conversion

Swapping a chart written in one brand for another, usually DMC to Anchor or Madeira. We do not publish a conversion chart, because every published one disagrees with the others.

The two brands are dyed to different recipes, so a match between them is somebody judging, not a fact.

The chart

What you are reading from.

The chart

The printed grid you stitch from. Every square carries a colour, a symbol, or both.

Symbol

The little mark standing in for one thread. It is what lets you stitch from a black and white printout, and what tells two similar colours apart even on a colour one.

Ours are drawn for this app, 195 of them, weighted so a dark thread gets a heavy mark and a pale one a light mark.

The key

The page listing every thread in the pattern: its number, its name, its symbol, how many strands, how many stitches and how many skeins to buy.

Stitch count

How many squares across and down the pattern is. Written as 100 by 120, and it is the number everything else is worked out from.

Bare fabric

A square with nothing in it. The cloth shows through, which is a real design choice rather than a gap.

This app

Words you will meet here.

Some of these are ordinary cross-stitch words used precisely, and some are ours. Either way, this is what they mean when this app says them.

Confetti

A chart where single stitches of many colours are scattered one here and one there, so you rethread constantly and the finished piece does not look any better for it.

It is what a photograph turns into if you convert it without care, and avoiding it is most of what a good conversion does.

A lone stitch

A stitch with no stitch of its own colour in any of the eight squares touching it, corners counted.

A lone stitch is usually deliberate: an eye, a highlight, a glint. That is why the app lights them up for you to judge rather than deleting them.

The fix tool

Paints over a lone stitch with the closest colour already touching it, so a stray disappears into the shape beside it rather than into the background.

OXS

The pattern file WinStitch and MacStitch read. Exporting one means you can carry on in either of those, and opening one means your old patterns come in here.

Anything in the file we cannot draw is carried through untouched rather than dropped.

Pattern Keeper

A phone app for following a chart while you stitch, ticking off what you have done. It is not a pattern maker, so it is something to stay compatible with rather than an alternative to this.

Now go and make one.

You do not need any of this to start. Drop a picture on the editor and it will hand you a chart, and the words will make sense the first time you stitch from one.