Aida Cross Stitch Centre

About Aida Fabric

Aida fabric is used by many thousands of cross stitchers all over the world. Aida cloth was invented by the Zweigart company in 1890 and was an immediate success because it was so easy to work and made counting the stitches very easy. This is due to its construction.

What is aida fabric?

If you examine aida closely you will see that it is made up not of single threads, but of groups of threads woven together. Where the thread groups intersect the holes are clearly defined, which helps to make the stitching easy and accurate. You can see this clearly on the illustration at the top of this page.

What does fabric thread count mean?

Aida is classified by its thread count, which is the number of holes per inch of fabric. When you stitch on 11-count aida fabric you will get 11 cross stitches per inch. 14-count fabric will give you 14 stitches per inch etc. Essentially the higher the fabric thread count, the closer the holes are together on the fabric.

The finer the fabric used, the smaller the stitches become, and therefore the whole design becomes smaller. So if you want a design to be very small - stitch it on 18-count aida, and if you want it very big - use 11 count aida.

What will be the finished size of my cross stitch design?

You can easily work out how big a design will turn out, on each different aida fabric, by simply dividing the number of stitches in the design by the thread count of the chosen fabric. So for example if your design is 140 stitches high by 112 stitches wide, and you decide to stitch it on a piece of 14-count aida, you can work out the size of the finished cross stitch as follows:

Divide the design height (140 stitches) by the fabric thread count (14-count): -140 divided by 14 = 10".
Now divide the design width (112 stitches) by the fabric thread count (14-count): -112 divided by 14 = 8".

So this design will measure 10" by 8" when completed on the 14-count aida.

What size piece of aida fabric do I need?

First find the design size. The design size is printed on most charts, for example 140 x 112 stitches. This gives the size of the design from the very top stitch to the very bottom stitch. (in this case 140 stitches), and from the extreme left hand stitch to the extreme right hand stitch.(in this case 112 stitches). If the design size is not given, it is quite easy to count the stitches on the chart, which is normally divided up into blocks of 10 squares.

Work out how big this design will be on your chosen fabric, as shown above. So let's say you decided to use 14-count aida. Then your finished cross stitch would measure 10" (140 divided by 14) by 8"(112 divided by 14).

If you are stitching a picture to frame, you may need to add on say 1" of blank fabric all around the design, unless you want the edges of the design right up to the frame. The picture framer will also need about 1.5" of extra fabric all round so that he can stretch your work onto a board before framing it. So in total you need to add 2.5" to the top, bottom and both sides, which equals 5" extra.

So you would need 15" (10" + 5") by 13" (8" + 5") in this example, that is 15" by 13" of fabric.

Which aida fabric should I use?

Think about how big you would like your cross stitch to be, and how it will fit into your home. Remember that the higher your fabric thread count the smaller your design will be, and the less stranded cotton will be required. But it will also be more difficult to see, especially if you do not have the best eyesight.

One advantage of using the higher thread count fabric is that the finished stitching looks fine and detailed. After all, you are stitching crosses and the smaller these become the more they lose their "cross" shape and become pixels of colour in the design.

The recommendations of the chart designer are a good guide here, as they will have given a lot of thought to which fabric to use. Also if you are doing a kit and you decide to use different fabric to make the design bigger, you will almost certainly need more stranded cotton.

Can I use linen evenweave fabric?

Linen evenweave fabrics are finer fabrics which are constructed differently from aida fabric, and are normally worked over 2 threads. So working out the sizes etc is quite different. Please click About evenweave fabric for information on this.

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Aida and evenweave cross stitch fabrics :

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