Guides

How to turn a photo into a cross-stitch pattern

You upload a photo, and criscros turns it into a cross stitch pattern that you follow on your screen. Along the way you make three choices: which photo to use, how big the pattern should be, and how many thread colors it should have. This guide explains each one.

Choose the photo

Use any photo you like. It can be a JPG, PNG or GIF of up to 10 MB.

A pattern has far fewer squares than a photo has dots, so the smallest details may not show. You see the pattern before you buy any thread, and you can make as many patterns from one photo as you like.

Choose the size

The size of a pattern is counted in stitches. When you pick a size, you are choosing how many stitches the longer side of the pattern has.

A bigger pattern shows more detail, but it takes longer to stitch and uses more thread. A pattern that is twice as wide and twice as tall has four times as many stitches.

Size Stitches on the longer side On 14-count fabric
Small 60 4.3 in
Medium 120 8.6 in
Large 200 14.3 in
  • Small is good for a simple picture and a quick project.
  • Medium works for most photos of one person, one pet or one object.
  • Large is for photos with a lot of detail, such as a portrait or a landscape.

Want a different size? Open Advanced options and type in the exact width and height, up to 400 stitches on the longer side. The size chart shows how big each size will be on your fabric.

Choose the number of colors

criscros matches every stitch to a real DMC thread color. There are 490 that are still sold, and a photo can easily use more than a hundred, some for only a few stitches. So you choose the most colors the pattern may use: 12, 25, 50 or 100.

  • Fewer colors mean less thread to buy, bigger areas of one color and a simpler look.
  • More colors mean smoother shading, more thread to buy and more changing of thread while you stitch.

Not sure? Start with 25. Then make a second pattern with 50 and compare the two before you buy any thread. You can make as many patterns as you like from one photo.

criscros then picks the threads that suit your whole photo best, up to that number.

Advanced options have one more color setting: you can drop any color that would be used for only a few stitches.

Erase the background

You do not have to stitch the whole photo. Open Advanced options and use step 3, Erase. It is optional.

  • Tap the background in the picture. It is erased, together with the squares that touch it and look like it. How similar sets how much one tap takes: move it left to take less, right to take more.
  • Eraser paints over anything a tap missed. Bring back paints erased squares back in. Brush size makes either brush bigger or smaller.
  • Undo takes back the last change. Clear brings every square back.

Erased squares are not stitched and need no thread. The pattern shows nothing there, and the printed chart leaves them white. If your photo has a see-through background, that part is erased already.

What you get

Your pattern opens in a viewer made for stitching from. Here is what it shows you.

A close view of the chart: each square has a thread color and a symbol, with a heavier line every ten stitches and numbers along the edges

A chart you can zoom into

Every square is one stitch. It shows the thread color and a symbol, so you can tell similar colors apart. A heavier line marks every ten stitches, and the edges are numbered so you can count across and down.

The list of threads: a symbol, a DMC number, a name and a number of stitches for each color

A list of the threads you need

The list gives each thread's DMC number and name, and how many stitches use it. It is your shopping list.

The whole chart with every stitch of one thread shown in bright yellow

One color at a time

Pick a thread in the list and every stitch of that color lights up on the chart, so you can work through the pattern one color at a time.

The thread list with some threads ticked as done, and a count of how much of the pattern is finished

A place to tick off what you have finished

Tick a thread when you have stitched all of it. Your ticks are saved to your account, so they are there on your phone and on your computer. When you open the pattern again, the chart shows only the threads you have finished, so it looks like your fabric.

The chart beside a panel that shows a small picture of the whole pattern with the part in view marked, and the finished size on 14, 16 and 18-count fabric

The finished size

The viewer tells you how big the finished piece will be on 14, 16 and 18-count fabric, and shows where you are in the whole pattern.

You can work from the screen or from paper. Choose Print on the chart to print the pattern or save it as a PDF.

In short

  1. Upload any photo you like. It can be a JPG, PNG or GIF of up to 10 MB.
  2. Make a Medium pattern with up to 25 colors and look at it in the viewer.
  3. Try other sizes and numbers of colors until one looks right. Then buy the thread and start stitching.