About StitchZoid

StitchZoid turns a photograph into a counted cross-stitch chart: a symbol grid, a thread key with quantities, and a finished size worked out from your fabric count.

Fabric count does the arithmetic

A chart on its own tells you nothing about how big the finished piece will be. The same 100×100 chart is roughly 23 cm across on 11-count Aida and about 14 cm on 18-count. StitchZoid asks which fabric you are using and works the finished dimensions out from it, then tells you how much fabric to buy including margin for hooping and framing — because running out of margin is discovered far too late to fix.

Reducing a photograph to floss

The crop is averaged down to one cell per stitch in linear light, which keeps midtones where they belong instead of dragging them dark. Colours are reduced by weighted k-means clustering in CIELAB so that the reduction minimises perceived error — a face stitched in sixteen colours has to still read as that face. Each resulting colour is matched to the closest thread by CIEDE2000, and any two that resolve to the same thread are merged so the key never lists one skein twice.

Everything is deterministic. The same photograph and settings produce the same chart, every time.

Symbols, because charts get printed

Every colour gets its own printable symbol. A colour chart is pleasant on a screen and useless once photocopied, and most stitching happens from paper in poor light. Charts print tiled across sheets at a constant readable stitch size rather than shrunk to fit one page, with row and column ranges labelled so you can find your place.

Full crosses only

This produces whole-stitch charts. It does not generate fractional stitches, backstitch outlines, French knots or blended needles.

Last updated September 2026.