When anyone starts a new project there is one question that plagues cross stitchers everywhere. How many skeins of thread do I need?
What makes this question even harder is it isn’t the same for everyone. You see, people stitch in different ways, and generally that means you can be more or less efficient. So we stitched one color in an efficient and inefficient way to get a scale of how many stitches you can make using a whole 8m skein of thread.
| Count | Inefficient Stitches |
Average Stitches |
Efficient Stitches |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 1200 | 1250 | 1300 |
| 12 | 1450 | 1500 | 1550 |
| 14 | 1650 | 1750 | 1850 |
| 16 | 1950 | 1950 | 2050 |
| 18 | 2200 | 2250 | 2300 |
| 20 | 2450 | 2500 | 2550 |
| 22 | 2700 | 2750 | 2800 |
Inefficient vs Efficient Stitches
A few people have asked what make the difference between efficient and inefficient stitches, so to help you stitch more economically, here is what we did.
Inefficient – Stitched in the “English Method”, with knots in the starts of the threads and ends of threads. Shorter lengths of threads were used, and all threads were used till at least 2 inches were left.
Efficient – Stitched in the “Danish Method”, no knots in the start or end (thread ends tucked), long lengths of thread and only 1 inch left before ending the thread.
If you want to increase your stitching efficiency, you might want to read our post on how to cross stitch faster.
I’m thinking about starting the epic gen 1 Pokémon cross stitch but have a question, on let’s say 14ct aida would you use 2 or 3 threads to prevent the white from peaking out? Thank you
It depends on the look you’re going for. For a peice with lots of changing of colors, you don’t see the white as much as you would if there was a large block of color for example. So I would probably suggest 2 stands on 14 count white. However if you’re doing the extended version (as this has a large single color border) or you want a more filled in look, then 3 strands.
To give you an idea, ALL of the completed epic Pokemon patterns page are 2 strand (even those on 16 count).
Once you’ve worked that out, you can input your details into our skein estimator and it’ll tell you how many skeins of thread you need.
Thank you very much I’m finishing a Pikachu project and I’m hopeful to start the gen 1 epic without the border. I’ll follow your advice