Cross Stitch Patterns or Kits: What You Actually Buy
A kit sells you thread measured for one picture. Buying your own means whole skeins, so a small project throws 83 percent of the floss into a drawer and a large one 34 percent. That leftover is the difference: four projects bought fresh each time come to $27.60 of materials, and the same four with a growing stash come to $16.05.
The one difference that matters
A kit contains thread measured for one picture. When the picture is finished the thread is gone.
Buying your own means buying skeins, and a skein is 8 metres of six strand cotton whether you need 8 metres of it or half a metre. Everything else about this comparison follows from that single fact, so it is worth seeing as numbers before it is argued about as a preference.
Here are four projects, all converted from the same photograph so the only thing changing is the size, worked on 14 count aida with two strands.
| Project | Stitches | Colours | Floss used | Floss bought | Left over | Materials |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40 by 32 | 1,269 | 6 | 24 m | 144 m | 83% | $3.64 |
| 60 by 48 | 2,857 | 6 | 56 m | 144 m | 61% | $3.82 |
| 100 by 80 | 7,938 | 12 | 155 m | 312 m | 50% | $8.12 |
| 140 by 112 | 15,584 | 12 | 302 m | 456 m | 34% | $12.02 |
A first project uses a sixth of the thread you have to buy for it. That is not waste in any meaningful sense, it is simply that a skein is the unit shops sell, but it does mean the first piece looks expensive and every piece after it does not.
Cost per stitch tells the same story from the other end: $2.87 per thousand stitches on the smallest project, $0.77 on the largest. Small pieces are expensive per stitch and cheap in absolute terms, which is exactly the right way round for someone starting.
What the leftovers are worth
At two strands on 14 count, one full cross takes about 1.5 cm of thread. So leftovers convert straight back into work.
The 140 by 112 portrait leaves 154 metres in the box after it is finished. That is another 10,300 stitches, or eight more projects the size of the first one in the table, assuming the numbers happen to suit.
That last clause is doing a lot of work, and here is the part nobody says out loud.
Palettes overlap less than you hope
I expected two charts made from the same photograph to share most of their threads. They do not.
| Shared numbers | |
|---|---|
| 40 by 32 chart and 60 by 48 chart, same photo | 3 of 6 |
| 40 by 32 chart and 140 by 112 chart, same photo | 2 of 12 |
| 100 by 80 chart and 140 by 112 chart, same photo | 6 of 12 |
| Portrait and a hand charted sampler | 2 of 3 |
A smaller grid does not pick a subset of the larger palette. It picks different threads, because averaging over bigger squares lands on different colours. So a stash built from portraits is a partial discount on the next portrait, not a supply cupboard.
Across all four projects in order, buying only what was missing each time:
- fresh materials every time: $27.60
- with the stash carried forward: $16.05
Eleven dollars and fifty five cents, over four projects. Which is real, and is also not the reason to choose one way or the other. Anyone deciding this on price is deciding on eleven dollars spread over a year.
Where a kit is honestly better
I would not talk anybody out of a kit in these cases.
- The decisions are the problem. Choosing cloth, count, size and palette is four decisions before a stitch, and for a lot of people that is where the hobby ends. A kit is a decision remover, and that is worth money.
- The fabric is cut to fit. Buying aida means buying more than you need and cutting it, and getting the margin wrong is a real beginner mistake.
- It is a present. A kit is a thing in a box with a picture on the front. A chart and a shopping list is not.
- You want stamped work. Stamped kits print the design on the cloth. There is no counting, which changes the craft completely and suits people who find counting unbearable. You cannot get that from a chart at all.
- The design is licensed. Anything with a character on it exists as a kit or not at all.
The honest version of the case against is narrower than the internet suggests. Kit floss is normally the same DMC or Anchor cotton you would buy anyway. Kit aida is ordinary aida. The complaint worth taking seriously is thread quantity: a kit is measured for the design with little margin, so a mistake unpicked twice can leave you short of a colour with no dye lot match available.
Where your own chart wins
- Size. A kit is one size on one cloth. Your own chart is any size on any count, and the same grid on 18 count instead of 14 comes out a third smaller without a single change to the pattern.
- Subject. This is the whole reason people start: their own animal, their own house, their own name on it.
- The palette is a decision, not a given. In a kit somebody else decided there would be 24 colours. On the same 2,870 stitch design, 24 colours is $13.20 of floss and 3 colours is $1.65, and the picture is not four times better.
- You keep the thread. The stash is the compounding part.
Buying without a kit, in order
- Pick the size before anything else, because it sets the stitches, the hours and the cloth.
- One skein per colour in the chart, plus a spare of the two or three that carry the piece.
- Cut the aida three inches bigger than the design in each direction.
- A blunt tapestry needle to suit the count, and small sharp scissors. That is the whole list of things a first project needs.
- From project two onward, subtract what you already own before you order.
Step five is the one that needs a record rather than a memory, and a drawer of skeins is not a record. Put the numbers you own into Flossgrid and the shopping list arrives with them already taken off.
Questions that come up
Are cross stitch kits worth it?
For a first project, often yes, and not because the materials are better. A kit removes four decisions at the moment when decisions are what stop people starting: which cloth, what size, which numbers, how much. What you pay for that is choice of subject and the ability to change the size, plus a slightly worse price per stitch. From the second project onwards, buying separately is cheaper and leaves you with thread, which a kit does not.
What comes in a cross stitch kit?
Fabric cut to size, floss in the quantities that design needs, a needle, and a chart. Better kits include a hoop, worse ones include floss so short there is no margin for a mistake. Two kinds exist and they are not the same craft: counted kits give you blank cloth and a chart, stamped kits print the design on the fabric so there is no counting at all. Check which one you are buying, because stamped work cannot be moved to another cloth.
Is it cheaper to buy a kit or make your own pattern?
Per project, the raw materials for your own work are cheap: about $3.64 for a small first piece and $12.02 for a 10 by 8 inch portrait at US shop prices, fabric included. Most kits cost more than that, and the gap is the design, the packing and the convenience rather than anything in the bag. The real saving arrives later, because the skeins you bought are 34 to 83 percent unused and the next project starts partly paid for.
Do I need to buy floss again for the next project?
Some of it, and less than you would think, though also less than you hope. Two charts made from the same photograph at different sizes shared only 2 of their 12 numbers, because a smaller grid picks different threads rather than a subset of the same ones. Across four projects the growing stash still cut the total from $27.60 to $16.05. Treat the stash as a discount, not as a supply.
Are custom pet portrait kits any good?
You are paying somebody to convert your photo and post you the thread, and the conversion is the part worth scrutinising. Ask how many colours the chart uses and how many isolated single stitches it contains, because a converter left on its defaults produces hundreds of stray stitches in a background nobody will look at. If the seller cannot answer, you are buying a printout. The thread in the box is the cheap part.