An image in, a chart you can actually stitch out. Take a picture or upload an image. Then choose your cloth, number of colors, and desired project size. Basic mode will take care of the rest, while advanced options including freehand tools are always available. Tick off your progress as you go, or export the pattern to your favorite stitch tracking app.
Every control where you can see it. Nothing hidden behind a gesture.
The whole idea
A chart you can actually stitch
Cross Count is built end to end for the person holding the needle. Upload an image, take a picture, or freehand draw your design. Cross Count then picks from the 489 real DMC shades, works the grid out from your finished size and your cloth count, costs the skeins, and then turns the chart into a stitching view that ticks squares off as you go. Everything happens on your phone, and it saves itself.
Real DMC numbers
Sized to your cloth
Keeps your place
Saves itself
Start to finish: four steps
1 Pick a picture
From your photos, straight off the camera, or drawn by hand in the app. The picture is kept at full quality behind the chart, so reworking the design later never costs you detail.
2 Your cloth
How wide, how tall, and the count of the cloth in your drawer. That’s it, Cross Count calculates the rest.
3 Place it on the cloth
The frame is your cloth, stitch for stitch, and the picture moves under it: drag to place, pinch to zoom.
4 Finish the pattern
Choose how many colors, adjust the light, decrease or increase lone stitches. Everything instantly redraws as you adjust the sliders. Then Open the chart, and from there it saves itself.
Homeyour projectsImporta picture in, four stepsDesignthe chart, still editableWIPstitching, place keptPortfoliofinished pieces
See it happen
Your picture, in real thread.
Drag the handle to see real image inputs and resulting Cross Count outputs.
PictureChart
A crowned kitten. 203 by 208 squares, 25 colors.
PictureChart
A rose. 112 by 140, 15 colors.
PictureChart
A penguin. 112 by 140, 21 colors.
PhotoChart
A photograph works too! 224 by 248 squares, 36 colors.
Stitch from the phone, and never lose your row
One thread at a time
Say which thread is in your needle and the chart highlights only that color.
Tick squares off
After choosing your thread color, drag a rectangle from any corner to check off your progress. A finished square goes green and gets an individual tick mark. Every gesture can be undone.
Row by row
For stitchers who work across rather than by color. Row done ticks the whole row off and moves the band down one.
Find the next stitch
2,547 of 42,224 stitched · 6%
Your progress is always auto-saved, ready for next time.
Photos & notes
An album accompanies each project. Every photo is stamped with the date and how far along the piece was, and the last one becomes the cover when you finish.
Every shade, with what to buy and what you’ll use.
Real thread
A shopping list, not just a color key
For each shade: the DMC number and its real name, the symbol it uses, how many stitches it covers, what share of the piece that is, how many skeins to buy, and how much of one you will actually get through.
Say how many strands you stitch with, or let the cloth decide, and add 10, 15 or 20 percent spare before you shop. Copy this list puts the whole thing on your clipboard as plain text.
DMC 347Salmon Very Dark
DMC 351Coral
DMC 3777Terra Cotta Very Dark
DMC 22Alizarin
DMC 947Burnt Orange
DMC 918Red Copper Dark
DMC 632Desert Sand Ultra Very Dark
DMC 433Brown Medium
DMC 801Coffee Brown Dark
DMC 422Hazelnut Brown Light
DMC 3826Golden Brown
DMC 436Tan
DMC 167Yellow Beige Very Dark
DMC 782Topaz Dark
DMC 370Mustard Medium
DMC 833Golden Olive Light
DMC 729Old Gold Medium
DMC 726Topaz Light
DMC 734Olive Green Light
DMC 18Yellow Plum
DMC 581Moss Green
DMC 471Avocado Green Very Light
DMC 904Parrot Green Very Dark
DMC 16Chartreuse Light
DMC 561Jade Very Dark
DMC 912Emerald Green Light
DMC 3851Green Bright Light
DMC 3849Teal Green Light
DMC 3809Turquoise Very Dark
DMC 806Peacock Blue Dark
DMC 996Electric Blue Medium
DMC 3842Wedgewood Very Dark
DMC 826Blue Medium
DMC 803Baby Blue Ultra Very Dark
DMC 823Navy Blue Dark
DMC 550Violet Very Dark
DMC 718Plum
DMC 3804Cyclamen Pink Dark
DMC 3803Mauve Dark
DMC 309Rose Dark
DMC 3801Melon Very Dark
DMC 3832Raspberry Medium
DMC 891Carnation Dark
DMC 304Red Medium
Fit to your cloth
17 cloth counts
Basic mode offers the five counts that between them cover every ordinary project: 11, 14, 16 and 18 count Aida, and 28 count over two. Advanced mode opens even more options:
Aida — one stitch per block
6 ct Herta
8 ct Aida
11 ct Aida
14 ct Aida
16 ct Aida
18 ct Aida
20 ct Aida
22 ct Hardanger
Evenweave & linen — over two threads
25 ct Lugana
27 ct Linda
28 ct Cashel
30 ct Murano
32 ct Belfast
36 ct Edinburgh
40 ct Newcastle
Over one thread — petit point
28 ct over one
32 ct over one
The color of the cloth matters too: a square that already matches your fabric can be left bare, and the chart is drawn on the cloth you chose.
White
Ecru
Cream
Antique white
Light oatmeal
Pale blue
Black
The cloth page, in plain words: how big, and on what.
How much do you want to see?
Basic to begin, advanced when you want it
One switch in Settings. Basic mode walks you through all the steps and provides adjustable default settings. Advanced mode lets you draw an image from scratch and offers more complex modifications.
Basic
Walks you through it
Import a picture, fit it to your cloth, a few sliders, and a chart to stitch from. Ticking stitches off, finding your place, progress photos: all there.
Advanced
Adds the rest
The hand tools, drawing from scratch, the full set of picture and stitching settings, and notes on a piece.
BasicAdvanced
Switch whenever you like, in either direction. And if an Advanced setting is moved off its default, Basic still shows it: you are never looking at a chart shaped by a dial you cannot see.
Home. Choose an image, take a picture, or draw freehand.
Everything you have started. Search it by name, and pick up any of them.
And everything you have charted. A design can be stitched more than once.
By hand
Beyond basics: the chart is yours.
In advanced mode, every design is fully editable, with the tools where you can easily see them.
Paint squares
Tap or drag to paint in the chosen floss, freehand or in straight lines.
Lay backstitch
Drag corner to corner for outlines, whiskers and lettering. Carries through to the exports and the thread list.
Erase and undo
Tap a painted square or a backstitch line to remove it. The undo option is always available.
Outline it for me
One tap lays black backstitch around the subject, or around every color, your choice.
Draw your own
Start from a blank canvas instead of a photo: your drawing goes through the same conversion a picture would.
Pick any of the 489
The floss picker searches by number or by name, and shows the shades already in your chart first.
The 67 symbols
Heaviest ink first, so a black-and-white chart still reads as a rough grayscale of your design.
Colors, symbols, and grid lines can each be switched on or off with one tap. Colors with the grid off is the finished piece. Printed patterns use black and white symbols that still read as the picture because the darkest threads carry the heaviest marks.
Take it away
Off the phone, onto the table.
Export has its own screen: preview every page, then save to your phone and/or print.
The whole chart, tiled
Sheets of 50 by 60 squares with three squares repeated on every join, so a taped-together chart lines up. Plus the whole chart on one page and the thread list.
PDF, images, or Pattern Keeper
Save as a PDF, an image file, or a PDF fully compatible with Pattern Keeper, if that’s your preferred project tracking app.
Every project in one file
Back up all projects writes the whole library to one .ccbackup, which restores onto a new phone. No need for accounts, passwords, or annual memberships.
Every page, before you print one.
Sheet 1 of 9. Print at full size and a square is the size it should be.
Back up all projects. One file, everything in it, and a way back that adds only what is missing.
Why another one
We read the reviews so you don’t have to
Before writing a line of it we read hundreds of reviews of the other charting apps. Cross Count is built against that list.
“I’d been working on it for almost a week and it was almost done. It never autosaved. All my progress is gone.”
It saves itself. Every change is written to the phone a few seconds after you make it, and again the moment you leave a screen. There is no Save button to forget, and one file backs the whole library up.
“How do you start a new project? I can’t close the image I’m working on. Getting frustrated.”
Five tabs, always in view. Home starts one, a card opens one, a tab takes you back. Every feature has a button you can see, not a gesture you have to be told about.
“I’m not sure what cell size is. The higher the cell size the smaller the chart gets. I don’t get what a cell is I guess.”
You never meet a cell. You say how wide and how tall the finished piece should be, in inches, and which count of cloth you have. The stitch grid is arithmetic from there, and the app shows you the sum.
“When you want a new color, the most recent stitches change to the new color instead.”
A new color applies going forward, never backwards. Nothing you have already placed changes when you pick a different thread, and an automated test checks exactly that on every build.
“I exported the chart and the ten-line grid wasn’t there. And the symbols didn’t match the color key.”
One renderer draws everything. The chart on screen, the stitching view and every exported page are the same drawing code, so a symbol, a rule or a backstitch cannot show up in one and go missing from another.
“The backstitch feature is a pain.” · “It doesn’t track backstitch — it won’t be on the finished PDF.”
Backstitch is a real tool. Drag corner to corner and it snaps to the holes in the fabric. It appears on the chart, in the stitching view, on the exports and as its own rows in the thread list.
“Please update the floss charts — it’s using DMC colors that have been discontinued.” · “Their colors don’t match the real DMC.”
All 489 current DMC stranded cottons, matched in a color space built around how eyes see difference, so the thread the app picks is the one that looks closest to you.
“Only 250×250.” · “Limited symbol options, which restricts it for larger designs.”
Pieces up to 24 inches a side, and 67 distinct symbols, drawn as shapes rather than font glyphs so they stay crisp at print size instead of collapsing into identical little boxes.
“…and then they built a separate paid app instead of updating the one I bought.”
No subscription, no in-app purchases, no ads, no account. If we build something better, it is an update to this app, not a sequel.
The whole app
Nothing gated, nothing paywalled.
Every fabric, every shade, every tool and both modes are in the one app. One price, once, and never a subscription.
all of it
Cross Count
$8.99one payment, no subscription
Android first · iPhone and iPad soon after · coming soon
All 489 DMC stranded cottons, matched the way eyes see difference
17 cloths, over one thread or two, from 6 count to 40, in seven colors
Pieces from 2 to 24 inches a side, with 4 to 60 threads and 67 distinct symbols
The work screen: choose your thread, tick off, find the next stitch, row, photos, notes, portfolio
Full export: PDF, images or Pattern Keeper, tiled sheets, the thread list, project files
One backup file for the whole library, and a restore that adds only what is missing
Everything happens on your phone; nothing is ever sent to us
Deliberately. Not toggles in a menu — things the app simply cannot do.
No subscription and no recurring anything
No in-app purchases: no color packs, no unlock tiers, no “Pro”
No ads, and no “watch a video to export”
No account, no sign-in, no cloud you have to trust
No internet permission at all: the app has no way to upload your photos
No file lock-in: exports are ordinary PDFs and PNGs
Before you ask
Questions people ask
Will it fit the cloth I already have?
Yes. You give it the finished width and height, and the count of the cloth in your drawer. Cross Count works out the rest.
How many colors will it use?
Between 4 and 60, and you choose. They are picked from the 489 real DMC shades, and no two threads in one chart sit closer together than the eye can separate.
What pictures work best?
Bold shapes, clear edges and a subject that fills the frame. A busy background converts too, but gravel, foliage and brickwork are where lone stitches come from, so place the cloth tight on your subject in step three. Faces are the hardest thing in cross stitch generally: one wants about a hundred stitches across to be recognizable.
Are the DMC colors accurate?
They are as accurate as anyone’s. DMC has never released screen values for its floss, and the published tables disagree with each other. Cross Count matches in a color space built around how eyes see difference, which is the right one for “looks closest to a person”, but you should still check a real shade card before buying thread.
Can I fix the chart by hand?
Yes, in Advanced. Paint a square in any thread, lay backstitch corner to corner or in straight runs, erase squares or lines, and undo any of it. There is also an “Outline it for me” button that lays black backstitch around the subject in one step.
What is the difference between a design and a work?
A design is the chart you can still change: it keeps your picture at full quality, and every slider and every hand edit is live. Stitch it turns it into a work: the chart frozen, with your ticked-off squares, your row, dated progress photos and notes on top. A work never re-converts, so nothing shifts under you mid-piece. To change the chart, go back to the design and stitch it again.
Can I stitch from paper?
Yes. The chart tiles across sheets fifty squares by sixty, with three squares repeated on every join so nothing falls down the crack between two pages. Save it as one PDF, as images with the thread list as a text file beside them, or as a Pattern Keeper PDF. If the picture sits in a plain background, a switch trims the blank cloth off and saves sheets.
Does it chart half or quarter stitches?
Not yet. Fractional stitches coming soon!
Will I lose my work if my phone does?
In Settings, Back up all projects writes every design and every piece, pictures, progress, and photos, to one .ccbackup file, which can be copied and saved to any phone or computer. Restore from a backup on a new phone repopulates all your work.
Do my photographs get uploaded anywhere?
No. The conversion runs on the phone and the app asks for no internet permission at all, so nothing is ever sent to us. It does ask for the camera and your photo library, because choosing or taking a picture is the first thing it does. Android’s own backup can include the app, and your projects live inside it, which you can turn off in Android’s settings.
Which phones does it run on?
Android 7.0 and up, in portrait, with iPhone and iPad after the Android release. Large text is a switch in Settings, and it scales the whole app rather than only the labels.
Cross Count
A picture in, a chart you can actually stitch out.
Android first, iPhone and iPad soon after · no subscription, no ads
Questions, or something to say? Write to anna@fiddlemint.com — a real person reads every one. Cross Count is currently in testing; send a note and you’ll hear the day it comes out.
Made by a solo dev who got tired of losing charts ♥
DMC is a trademark of DMC Corporation; Cross Count is not affiliated with or endorsed by DMC, and floss colors on screen are approximations. Pattern Keeper is a trademark of its owner and is not affiliated with Cross Count.
One thread at a time
Tick squares off
Row by row
Find the next stitch
Photos & notes
