Everything you need to create stitchable patterns
Photo conversion, drawing tools, confetti cleanup, and professional PDF export—all in your browser. No download required.
Import modes
Whether you are converting a favorite photo, adapting pixel art, or designing from scratch — pick the starting point that fits your project. Every import mode matches colors to real thread brands you can buy.
Photo Conversion
Turn any photo into a stitchable pattern — adjust colors, size, and detail in real time until the preview looks right. The converter matches to real thread brands so you can start shopping immediately
Pixel Art Mode
Each pixel becomes one stitch — no resizing, no color guessing. Ideal for video game sprites, perler bead conversions, and designs where every cell matters
Blank Canvas
Start with an empty grid at any size and design freehand — the way most samplers, alphabets, and original patterns begin
Multiple Formats
Accepts PNG, JPG, GIF, and WebP — drop in whatever you have, no conversion needed
Drawing tools
Create and edit patterns with pixel-perfect precision. Every tool updates the canvas instantly so you can see exactly what you're creating. See the cross stitch pattern maker page for a walkthrough.
Pencil Tool
Place stitches one at a time — ideal for detail work around edges, small text, and fixing individual cells after conversion
Brush Tool
Fill in large areas fast with an adjustable brush (1–20 cells). Great for painting backgrounds, filling borders, or blocking in color regions before refining.
Fill Tool
Click to flood-fill an entire color region at once — useful for swapping background colors or filling enclosed shapes like borders and frames
Eraser Tool
Clear stitches with an adjustable brush — clean up mistakes, open up negative space, or carve out areas for a different color
Color Picker
Click any stitch to grab its color and start drawing with it — saves time when you're working with a large palette and need to match an existing area
Text Tool
Type names, dates, or messages directly onto your canvas with 48 cross-stitch fonts. Live preview shows exactly how the lettering will look before you place it — perfect for birth samplers, wedding gifts, and monograms.
Image Overlay Tool
Overlay a reference photo on your canvas at adjustable opacity and trace over it stitch by stitch. Useful for recreating a printed pattern, matching colors to a photo, or drawing original designs with a guide underneath.
Multi-Layer Editing
Separate design elements onto different layers so you can edit them independently — keep backstitch on one layer, main stitching on another, or create pattern variations you can toggle between. Lock, hide, and merge layers when you are ready.
Shape tools
Lay down borders, frames, and geometric motifs in a few clicks instead of placing stitches one by one.
Rectangle Tool
Draw rectangles and squares for borders, frames, and color blocks — hold Shift for a perfect square
Ellipse Tool
Create circles and ovals with clean stair-stepped edges that look natural when stitched — great for wreaths, ornaments, and rounded motifs
Line Tool
Draw straight lines at any angle with adjustable thickness — useful for dividers, geometric patterns, and structural elements
Selection & Transform
Rearrange your design without re-stitching from scratch. Select any region, then move, duplicate, flip, or rotate it — three selection modes let you grab exactly what you need.
Rectangle Selection
Drag a box around any area — the fastest way to grab a block of stitches for moving or copying
Lasso Selection
Trace around irregular shapes freehand — useful for isolating a motif, flower, or figure from its background
Magic Wand
Click any stitch to select the entire connected region of that color — then move, delete, or recolor the whole shape at once
Move & Copy
Reposition elements or duplicate them with Ctrl+drag — handy for repeating motifs across a sampler or border
Flip & Mirror
Mirror a motif horizontally or vertically to build symmetrical designs — borders, mandalas, and matching pairs
Rotate
Turn selections in 90° steps — useful for corner motifs that need to repeat at each corner of a border
Stitch types
Six stitch types give you the range to add shading, outlines, fine detail, and dimensional accents — everything you need for patterns that go beyond basic full crosses.
Full Cross Stitch
The workhorse of cross stitch. Every pattern starts here — full stitches form the base layer of your design
Half Stitch
Creates a lighter, more transparent effect than full crosses — perfect for sky gradients, water, and areas where you want the fabric to show through
Petite Stitch
Four tiny stitches fit inside one grid square, giving you 4x the resolution where it matters — faces, small text, and smooth curves that full crosses can't capture
Three-Quarter Stitch
Fills three-quarters of a grid square, smoothing out the stair-step edges where diagonal lines and curves meet — the stitch that makes rounded shapes look rounded
Backstitch
Thin lines that follow grid intersections to define edges, separate color areas, and add lettering. Backstitch is what makes a face look like a face instead of a blob of skin tones
French Knots
Small raised dots that add dimension — eyes, flower centers, berries, and snow. Fully supported in the editor, PDF export, and pattern imports, with realistic 3D rendering in preview
Color & Thread Management
Every color in your pattern maps to a real thread you can buy. Stitchmate's color database covers 50+ brands and 7,000+ colors — including hand-dyed, silks, and metallics — with values sampled from scanned manufacturer catalogs for the most accurate match possible.
DMC Thread Library
The full DMC six-strand catalog — the most widely available brand worldwide. Color values sampled from physical skeins for accurate on-screen matching
Anchor Thread Library
Full Anchor stranded cotton range — popular in the UK and Europe, with cross-references to DMC equivalents for pattern conversion
Cosmo Thread Library
Lecien Cosmo embroidery floss — known for its smooth finish and vibrant color range, especially popular for Japanese-style designs
Madeira Thread Library
Madeira stranded cotton — a favorite for machine embroidery crossover projects, with excellent colorfastness
Thread Brand Conversion
Switch your entire pattern from one brand to another in one click — useful when your local store doesn't carry DMC, or when you want to try a pattern in Cosmo or hand-dyed threads. Matching uses perceptual color science, not lookup tables
Color Replacement
Swap any thread color across the entire pattern at once — helpful when a color looks wrong on fabric, when a thread is discontinued, or when you want to try a different palette
Color Adjustment Tools
Tweak the entire palette at once — boost contrast for a photo that converted flat, shift hue for a seasonal color swap, or desaturate for a vintage look. Changes preview in real time.
Stitch Count per Color
See exactly how many stitches use each thread — so you know which colors dominate, which are barely used (and might be worth eliminating), and how your time will be distributed
Blended Colors
Combine 2–4 thread strands in the needle to create colors no single thread can match. The realistic preview shows each strand with natural twisting, and blend info carries through to your PDF export and shopping list
Pattern quality analysis
Before you stitch a single cross, know whether your pattern will be satisfying or frustrating. Stitchmate's FLOW score measures pattern quality across four dimensions that matter to stitchers.
FLOW stands for Fragmentation, Locality, Optimization, and Workability—the four factors that determine whether a pattern is enjoyable to stitch or tedious to complete. Each component scores 0–100, and the weighted composite gives you an overall quality rating.
Fragmentation Score
Measures confetti density. Isolated single stitches with no same-color neighbors create frustration; this score tells you how much confetti your pattern contains (0–2% is excellent, over 10% is problematic)
Locality Score
Measures how well colors cluster into regions. Good locality means you can work an area before moving on; poor locality means constant jumping around the canvas
Optimization Score
Flags palette problems like too-similar colors (DMC 3371 vs 3799—can you tell them apart?) and trivial colors used for fewer than 0.5% of stitches
Workability Score
Practical difficulty based on color count, pattern size, and backstitch density. A pattern can be high-quality but still complex to execute
Composite FLOW Score
Overall 0–100 rating combining all four factors. 85+ is excellent, 70+ is good, below 60 needs work
Actionable Issues List
Specific problems to fix: "DMC 310 and DMC 3799 are perceptually similar," "23 isolated stitches in upper-left quadrant"
Confetti reduction
Confetti—those scattered isolated stitches that don't connect to anything—is the most common complaint about converted patterns. Every confetti stitch means stopping, cutting thread, and restarting somewhere else. Stitchmate gives you two ways to clean it up.
Global Confetti Reduction
One-click cleanup that merges isolated stitches into neighboring color regions across the entire pattern. Adjustable threshold lets you control what counts as confetti (single stitches, pairs, or small clusters up to a size you specify)
Brush-Based Cleanup
Paint over specific areas to merge confetti locally without affecting the rest of your pattern. Useful when you want to preserve intentional detail in one area while cleaning up another
Before/After Preview
Compare before and after side by side so you can verify the cleanup preserved important detail before applying it
Pattern management
Experiment freely — undo anything, resize your canvas at any point, and let cloud sync keep your patterns safe across all your devices.
Cloud Sync
Patterns auto-save to your cloud account and sync across devices—even on the Free plan. Never lose your work.
Unlimited Undo/Redo
Never worry about losing your work or experimenting. Undo thousands of actions if needed almost instantly.
Pattern Gallery
All your patterns in one place — browse thumbnails, pick up where you left off, or open an old project to reuse a motif
Canvas Resize
Add more fabric around the edges or crop to a tighter frame — at any point in the design process, not only at the start
Zoom & Pan
Zoom from a full-pattern overview down to individual stitches with smooth, fluid transitions — essential for large patterns where you need both the big picture and pixel-level control
10×10 Grid Overlay
The same 10-square counting grid you see on printed charts — helps you keep your place and count accurately, both on-screen and when stitching from a printout
Export options
Export professional PDFs ready for printing or use with Pattern Keeper on your tablet. Every export includes a complete thread shopping list.
PDF Pattern Export
Multi-page charts with symbols, gridlines, and page navigation markers — print at home or at a copy shop, and start stitching immediately
Pattern Keeper Compatible
Every PDF works with the Pattern Keeper app out of the box — no special export settings needed. Mark off completed rows on your tablet as you stitch
Thread Shopping List
Take it straight to the store — thread codes, color names, stitch counts, and estimated skein quantities generated automatically. No more manual counting or spreadsheet math
PNG Image Export
Export a high-resolution image of your pattern for sharing on social media, Etsy listings, or cross-stitch forums. Available on the free plan.
Cover Page
Professional title page with pattern preview, dimensions, and color count — makes your PDFs look polished whether you are stitching for yourself or selling patterns. Pro users can upload a custom cover image.
Customizable Layout
Control page size (A4 or Letter), margins, color vs. black-and-white, cell size, tile overlap, and legend order — tailor the output to your printing setup and stitching preferences
Color Legend Customization
Add notes to any color in your legend — document thread substitutions, blending ratios, special techniques, or reminders for yourself. Everything appears in the exported PDF right next to the color swatch.
Export Limits by Plan
Free
Hobby
Pro
Built for large patterns
Stitchmate handles patterns up to 2,000 x 2,000 stitches without slowing down. GPU-accelerated rendering keeps the canvas responsive even on complex designs.
Large Pattern Support
Work on patterns up to 2,000 x 2,000 stitches — large enough for full-coverage pieces, detailed portraits, and multi-page designs that other browser editors can't handle
GPU Acceleration
Your graphics card does the heavy lifting — zooming stays fluid and color changes preview instantly, even on a 500x500 pattern with 40 colors
Background Processing
PDF generation and other heavy operations run in a background thread — the editor stays responsive while your export is being built
Works everywhere
No download or installation. Stitchmate runs in any modern browser on your phone, tablet, or computer—Mac, Windows, iPad, Android, or Chromebook.
Chrome
Full support
Firefox
Full support
Safari
Full support
Edge
Full support
Common questions about Stitchmate features
What features are free vs paid?
What's the maximum pattern size?
2000 × 2000 stitches. On 14-count Aida, that's roughly 143 × 143 inches — larger than most stitchers will ever need. The editor handles patterns this size smoothly thanks to GPU-accelerated rendering.
Can I import patterns from PCStitch or WinStitch?
Yes. Stitchmate opens .PAT (PCStitch), .OXS (WinStitch/MacStitch), and .XSD (XSPro) files. Drag and drop into the editor — colors, stitches, and backstitch transfer intact.
Does Stitchmate work on Mac, iPad, and Chromebook?
Yes — it runs in any modern browser. No download or installation. A standalone desktop app for offline editing is shipping in 2026, included free with every Lifetime license.
What thread brands does the editor support?
50+ brands including DMC, Anchor, Cosmo, and Madeira — plus hand-dyed, silks, and metallics. Colors are matched using perceptual color science for the most accurate results. You can remap an entire pattern from one brand to another with a single click.
Are exported PDFs compatible with Pattern Keeper?
How is Stitchmate different from other cross stitch software?
Ready to try it?
All features, no credit card, no download.