How to Read a Cross Stitch Pattern
A cross stitch pattern is a grid where one square means one stitch and the symbol in it names the thread. Bold lines every ten squares are there so you can count in tens. The legend maps each symbol to a floss number. You find the centre of the chart, match it to the centre of the fabric, and work outwards from there.
What the grid is
The single most common misunderstanding, and it costs people their first project: the squares on the chart are the stitches, not the holes in the cloth. A cross goes over one square of aida, using the four holes at its corners. So a chart 140 squares wide gives you 140 crosses, which needs 141 holes.
Everything else follows from that. The chart is a map of crosses. A blank square means no stitch there and the fabric shows through, which is a decision somebody made, not an omission. Having a grid at all is what separates this from freehand embroidery and from needlepoint.
The bold lines
Every tenth line is drawn heavier. They are not decoration and they are not section markers. They are there so that you never have to count past ten.
Counting nine squares one at a time is where mistakes come from. Counting to the bold line, then two more, is much harder to get wrong, and it is how experienced stitchers read distance on a chart without thinking about it. On a printed chart the tens usually get numbers up the side and along the top as well.
The legend
Somewhere on the chart is a table like this:
| Symbol | Floss | Name | Stitches |
|---|---|---|---|
| ● | DMC 310 | Black | 1,842 |
| ▲ | DMC 3863 | Mocha Brown Med | 1,204 |
| ▪ | DMC 3033 | Mocha Brown V Lt | 986 |
| / | DMC 3782 | Mocha Brown Lt | 741 |
That table is the only thing connecting the shapes on the grid to actual thread. Lose it and the chart is worthless, which is why printed charts put it on its own page and why you should keep the legend page with the rest.
Two things worth checking on any legend before you start:
- The stitch counts. They tell you what you are in for. A number with 40 stitches is a detail; a number with 4,000 is most of your evenings.
- Whether symbols repeat. Good charts avoid using two symbols that look alike at arm’s length, such as a dot and a small circle. If two are easy to confuse, mark one on the printout with a highlighter before you begin.
Colour blocks or symbols
Charts come in two styles, and both are the same chart.
Symbol charts print in black and white with a different shape in each square. They photocopy well, they cost nothing to print, and they are far easier to work from under a lamp at night, because a shape is unambiguous where two similar greys are not.
Colour block charts fill each square with an approximation of the thread colour, usually with the symbol printed on top. They are lovely for seeing what the finished thing looks like and harder to work from, because on the fifteenth evening you will be trying to tell two beiges apart.
Most people print the colour version once to look at and work from the symbol version. Squares below about 4 mm on paper stop being countable at all, which is why a large chart genuinely does need eight pages rather than one shrunk down.
Finding the centre and starting
- Fold the fabric in half, then in half again. The creases cross at the centre. Some people run a line of tacking along both creases in a contrasting thread and pull it out at the end.
- Find the centre of the chart. It is marked with arrows or a small triangle at the middle of each edge.
- Put your first stitch where those two meet, or at the nearest stitch of a colour that is actually there.
- Work outwards.
How to anchor that first stitch is a separate small skill, and it is done without a knot.
Starting from the centre means that any counting error stays local. Starting from a corner means an error compounds all the way across, and you discover it when the right hand edge runs off the cloth. What a miscount costs once it has had time to spread is worked out in fixing a cross stitch mistake.
Fractional stitches and other marks
- A square split diagonally with only half of it filled is a fractional stitch, usually a half cross, used to smooth a curve.
- A line drawn along a grid line is backstitch, worked last, over the top.
- A large dot sitting on a line intersection is normally a French knot, though not every chart uses them.
- A shaded but unsymbolled area is usually the chart telling you where the fabric stays bare.
Keeping your place
The practical problem with a large chart is not reading it, it is finding your way back to where you were after four days away.
The usual answers are to work in sections and finish one before starting the next, to mark off completed squares on the printout in pencil rather than pen, and to write down which colour and which row you stopped on before you put it down. A chart 140 by 112 splits naturally into six sections of about 50 by 60, which is roughly a week of evenings each, and a section boundary is a much better place to stop than the middle of a row.
If you are working from a chart you made yourself rather than a bought one, the same rules apply, but you also get to choose how busy the chart is in the first place: see turning a photo into a pattern for what a colour limit does to the number of stray single stitches you have to read past. And before any of it, the fabric decides how big the finished thing will be, which is a separate decision worth making on purpose. Flossgrid does the section splitting and the place keeping on screen if you would rather not print at all.
Questions that come up
What does counted cross stitch mean?
It means nothing is printed on the fabric. You are given a blank grid of cloth and a chart, and you count squares to know where each stitch goes. The alternative, stamped cross stitch, has the design printed on the fabric for you to cover. Counted work is more accurate and it is what every chart on the internet assumes, but it does mean the counting is now your job.
Where do I start a cross stitch pattern?
At the centre. Fold the fabric in half one way and then the other and the creases cross at the middle. The chart marks its own centre with arrows on the edges. Match those two points and work outwards. Starting at a corner is possible but unforgiving: if your margin is out by six stitches, you find out at the far edge, when there is no cloth left.
Do I have to work in the order the chart shows?
No. Most people work one colour over a whole area, then change, because rethreading is the slow part. Others work a block of squares in whatever colours it needs, sometimes called cross country, which suits patterns with a lot of mixing. Both are correct. What matters more is that you finish a section before you move on, so a lost count stays inside that section.
What are the little lines between the squares?
Backstitch. It is drawn on the grid lines rather than inside a square because it runs along the edge of a stitch, not in place of one. It is normally worked last, over the top of finished cross stitch, and it is what gives whiskers, eyelids and the outlines of small objects their definition. The legend lists it separately from the block colours.