Floss per skein: why the figures disagree
The estimate itself is one division: skeins = stitches of the color ÷ stitches per skein, rounded up. A guide works three examples this way, among them 1,700 ÷ 1,100 = 1.55, so two skeins. Everything rests on the figure underneath.
That figure is not agreed. For 14 count fabric, pages opened for this site on the day it was written give: 1,050 to 1,200 full crosses per skein with two strands in one guide; 1,650 to 1,850 in a table that was measured by stitching a whole skein, which does not state the strands; and about 1,600 with two strands on a calculator whose own worked examples do not follow that figure. The highest figure is far above the lowest. Part of the gap is real: knots, short lengths and long carries across the back all use thread, and the measured table has separate columns for a careful and a wasteful way of stitching. The rest is that nobody says exactly what was counted.
So this site does not publish a figure of its own. The calculator shows the one it uses and lets you change it, and it offers the method one author describes for finding yours: cut a length, stitch with it until it is used up, and count the crosses. A skein of six-strand floss is 8 m or 8.7 yd, which is 17 lengths of 18 inches; each length splits into 6 ÷ strands working threads, so stitches per skein = 17 × stitches from one length × 6 ÷ strands.
Add an allowance once, on top: guides suggest 10 to 25 percent depending on how scattered the color is. Do not also pick a pessimistic figure, or the waste is counted twice. Dye lots vary, so a second skein bought later may not match.
Chart: skeins to buy by stitches of one color and stitches per skein
Each cell is the number of skeins for the stitches in its row at the stitches-per-skein figure in its column, with fifteen percent extra. The columns span the figures quoted above; pick the one nearest your own.
| Stitches per skein | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stitches of this color | 800 | 1,100 | 1,400 | 1,750 |
| 500 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 1,000 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 1,500 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| 2,000 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| 3,000 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 |
| 5,000 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 4 |
| 8,000 | 12 | 9 | 7 | 6 |
| 12,000 | 18 | 13 | 10 | 8 |
| 20,000 | 29 | 21 | 17 | 14 |
Chart: stitches per skein from a test length, by stitches made and strands
Each cell is the stitches one eight meter skein gives when a length of eighteen inches makes the number of crosses in its row, with the strands in its column.
| Strands in the needle | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Stitches from one length | One strand | Two strands | Three strands |
| 10 | 1,020 | 510 | 340 |
| 15 | 1,530 | 765 | 510 |
| 20 | 2,040 | 1,020 | 680 |
| 25 | 2,550 | 1,275 | 850 |
| 30 | 3,060 | 1,530 | 1,020 |
| 40 | 4,080 | 2,040 | 1,360 |
| 50 | 5,100 | 2,550 | 1,700 |
Used by
- Cross stitch floss calculatorSkeins of floss for one color of a cross stitch pattern.