Bead cross-stitch sews a picture out of seed beads on fabric that already comes with the grid built in: Aida, a cotton woven with a hole at every corner of its small squares, or perforated paper, its cardboard cousin. One bead to each square of the chart — the bead sits across the square's diagonal, held by one stitch — and squares with no bead stay as bare fabric, which shows through as the background. The background isn't stitched around; it's part of the picture.
It is the quiet one on the bench. There's no ladder to build, no tension to hold round a loop — the fabric holds every bead for you. The app's own read of the craft: the chart's top left square is one square of fabric, and the whole design scales by a piece of arithmetic that never lies, squares divided by the fabric count. Fourteen squares to the inch is what the app teaches on, and it's why every one of its size lines says "14-count".
| Item | What to get | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Fabric | 14-count Aida or perforated paper | 14 squares to the inch, the count that suits size 11 beads — World of Cross Stitching calls the 11/0 the perfect size for 14-count fabric, and the beaded kit makers work their designs on both. Leave 3 in (7.5 cm) all round the design for a hoop and framing |
| Beads | Round seed beads, size 11/0 | One bead fits each square of 14-count — and squares left empty are meant to be |
| Needle | Size 10 or 12 beading needle | Fine enough to pass through an 11/0; a size 28 tapestry needle may also work — the app offers both |
| Thread | Beading thread, or one or two strands of embroidery floss | In a shade close to the beads — a matching thread hides best. Past Impressions' beading guide and World of Cross Stitching agree on this |
| Hoop | An embroidery hoop, if you use one | It holds Aida tight while you sew. Optional on perforated paper |
| Extras | Scissors | That's the kit. No loom, no board, no clasp — the fabric is the structure |
The chart is fabric. Each square is one square of Aida; a bead in a square means sew a bead there, an empty square means the fabric shows. The app's Make step lists each row in the order you sew it — with the bare squares to skip, and the arrow showing which way the row runs.
The size math is division: squares across (or down) divided by 14, in inches. The app's three size packs show it:
| Pack | Chart | Design size on 14-count | Cut the fabric, at least |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small picture | 28 × 28 squares | 2 in square | 8 in square |
| Greeting card | 42 × 28 squares | 3 by 2 in | 9 by 8 in |
| Framed picture | 70 × 70 squares | 5 in square | 11 in square |
The cut adds 3 inches on every side — the hoop's room and the framing margin — and Supplies works the exact cut from your pattern. Where row 1 starts: 3 in (7.5 cm) in from the top and left edges of a piece cut to the pattern's size; on a bigger piece of fabric, find the center and count out from it, half the squares across and half the rows up — DMC's chart-reading guide teaches the same center-out start.
The beginner examples walk the sizes. The app's first project is a Heart of 13 × 12 squares — under an inch across and 104 beads, most of them red with two pink highlights. The Rainbow, Cactus, Sailboat and Bumblebee are the same scale. Then the Vine bookmark, 13 squares across and 58 down — under an inch wide and better than 4 inches long, a real bookmark. And the Mountain sunset is the big honest jump: 42 × 28 squares with every square filled, sky to lake to ridges, exactly 3 by 2 inches — the greeting card you can make from a chart with no bare background at all.
One of the app's quiet tricks: bead cross-stitch is a craft it will make from a photo — pick a picture and the app turns it into a chart, matching every pixel's color to the nearest real bead the shop carries. The bare squares the photo didn't want stay fabric, and you've got a picture of a house instead of a house of guesswork.
The craft rewards going in order, because the per-bead cost is identical and only the length of the road changes. A small picture — the Heart, the Bumblebee — is an evening: 104 beads for the Heart, sewn while normal life happens. A card-size piece like the sunset is a week or three of evenings at about a thousand beads. The framed 70 × 70 is the one you buy thread for — at the mathematical top, 4,900 squares could all take beads (about 49 grams with the spare), which is a framed picture's worth of glass on your table.
Finishing follows the size. A small picture trims to a frame or a card front: cut the mount window to the design, the 3 inch margin is the room. On perforated paper, the design is the card — trim to size and it stands up as it is, which is why the paper kits started. A framed picture wants the usual stretched finish: a hoop during the work, then the fabric trimmed to the frame, the margin giving the framer something to grip.
| Symptom | The real cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| The beads lean different ways and the light sparkles unevenly | Stitches mixed directions — some bottom-left to top-right, some not | All beads, every time, same diagonal. If a bead stands out, unpick its stitch and re-hold it (it's one stitch — fifteen seconds) |
| Dark thread shadows the front where the background is bare | The thread carried too far across bare fabric on the back | End it and restart instead of carrying; or run the carry under the backs of stitches already made. Keep carries short — the app warns past 4 squares |
| The fabric ripples round the stitches | The hoop drifted loose, or the stitches pulled tight on a limp stretch | Reset the hoop drum-tight; pull each stitch flat and snug, not choked |
| A bead doesn't sit square in its cell | The stitch landed off the corners | The corners are the square's own: up at the bottom left, down at the top right; the optional second stitch squares a stubborn one |
| The design sits crooked on the fabric | Row 1 started at the fabric's edge, not the 3 in | Count from the center out instead: half the squares across, half up — then the margins take care of themselves |
| Beads ran out two rows from the bottom | The count was the chart's squares, not the picture's beads — or no spare at all | The Supplies list counts what you drew with the 10% spare; sew with the spare's first beads, keep the rest as insurance |
Plain arithmetic on the app's own drawn examples — beads sewn are the squares your picture fills, empty squares stay fabric — with the shopping list's 10% spare, the app's per-gram figure (11/0 rounds count out at 110 to the gram) and the shop's real 8.5 g Miyuki 11/0 tube. The app deliberately claims grams, never packs: shops' tube sizes vary, so the grams are the truth and the tube is the errand:
| Example picture | Beads sewn | With the 10% spare | Grams | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heart (the first project: 13 × 12 with bare background) | 104 | 115 | 1.0 g | 1 tube of 8.5 g |
| Mountain sunset (42 × 28, every square filled) | 1,176 | 1,294 | 12 g | 2 tubes of 8.5 g |
Fabric: the cut is the design plus 3 inches each side — the small picture in an 8 in square of Aida, the sunset in a 9 by 8 piece, the 70 × 70 in 11 in square. Thread: the app works about three squares' worth of thread per bead — the diagonal plus the short run across the back — plus 60 cm to finish, labelled a rough estimate: the Heart works out to about 1.2 m, the sunset to about 7.0 m. The shopping-list builder does the beads' math in the browser — chart squares with the spare, grams and tubes — and the app's Supplies tab adds the fabric cut straight from your own chart.
And what the method doesn't cover, honestly: petite glass beads (the 15/0 size) and other fabric counts. The shops sell the petite beads, but no source the app checked tells which count they belong on, so the app doesn't guess — 14-count and 11/0s it is. A whole framed tradition of beaded cross-stitch, the Mill Hill kits among them, lives entirely on this count anyway.
Once your hands trust the fabric's grid, the app does too: draw a chart, import a photo, or let one of the examples — the Rainbow is a quiet afternoon — hold the needle. The square-stitch guide is the same grid built in beads alone, and the fuse-bead guide swaps the sewing for an iron. For the words you just met — Aida, tail, tension — the glossary has them drawn out.