thread

[valenhammer]

how do you figure out how much thread you will need? is there a count/thread length formula or something?

[Asinine]

In my Mega Man piece, there were 6248 stitches of the background color. I used around 2-1/4 skeins of 6-strand 8m DMC. There were also 2573 black stitches, and that took just about one full skein. I used three strands at a time on 14-ct cloth. You'll use less on higher counts, both because you'll need less floss and because the squares are smaller. And, you'll also use less (in very large patterns) if you keep tighter stitches, although that could be rather negligible.

So... I'd guesstimate that if you're doing all the stitches in a row, one typical DMC color will last around 2500 stitches (on 14ct using 3 strands). If you're jumping around or not stitching all in the same area (lots of cuts/restarts), you'll need more floss.

Honestly, I tried figuring out a formula to determine how long a set amount of floss would go, but my math fun never seemed to work out right:

Spoiler

On 14ct each stitch makes two diagonal passes, and two straight passes (behind the cloth). That would be 2*(sqrt(1/14"+1/14")) + 2*1/14". This results in .344887652" per full crossed stitch. But for whatever reason, my estimation of 3.5" of floss per 10 stitches never seemed to be enough. In fact, I think I'd usually get 6 or 7 stitches. But anyway, that's the kinda odd stuff I do in my spare time while not stitching.

[Servotron]

When I was doing my Zelda map, I had it roughly worked out at 1 skein= 2500 stitches. That was using 2 pieces of thread on 18 count aida.

[blackmageheart]

I mostly just guess, but using the same 1 skein @ 2 strands = 2500ish stitches thing as a marker.

But you could be on to something Asinine and I shall tell you why...

PCStitch Pro can show you how many DMC skeins you will need to complete one colour in a pattern, usually it assumes you are using 2 strands. One full 8m skein is shown as 1.0. Mostly I see numbers such as 0.3, 0.5, etc - 0.5 is obviously half a skein, or 4m. I haven't bothered to test how accurate it is though (cos I'm lazy) but I'm pretty sure it's not gonna be far off. So there's a formula for that and it could probably be adapted for any number of strands/count aida. I might look into it more when I'm not stitching

[Asinine]

PCStitch Pro can show you how many DMC skeins you will need to complete one colour in a pattern, usually it assumes you are using 2 strands. One full 8m skein is shown as 1.0. Mostly I see numbers such as 0.3, 0.5, etc - 0.5 is obviously half a skein, or 4m. I haven't bothered to test how accurate it is though (cos I'm lazy) but I'm pretty sure it's not gonna be far off. So there's a formula for that and it could probably be adapted for any number of strands/count aida. I might look into it more when I'm not stitching

Hmm, this is interesting. I hate the mixing of imperial (aida count)/metric (8m of floss) though, or I'd probably be more motivated to check further into it... that, and I'm almost finished with my current project, so I'm just really losing interest in the math.

[mfay]

I've found a couple of charts on the interwebs that can give you an estimate of how many stitches you'll get per skein, depending on fabric count and number of strands:

http://home.comcast.net/~kathydyer/nf_x ... #floss_amt

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Edited to remove a link - on second look, I couldn't tell if it was for cross-stitch or needlepoint. The one above should be okay, though!