What confetti and thread changes actually cost — measured
Everyone in cross stitch says the same two things: confetti makes a project miserable, and fewer colours means less confetti. We build a photo-to-chart converter, so we can just measure it. These numbers come from our own engine, on 5 photos, at 12, 20, 30, 40 colours, 20 runs per setting. Measured 2026-09-16.
1. What cleanup removes
Same photo, same colour count, 200 stitches across. The only difference is our cleanup pass, off versus its default setting. "Lone stitches" are stitches with no same-colour neighbour — the ones you re-thread for and then hunt for on the chart.
| Photo | Colours | Lone stitches (off → on) | Cut | Thread changes (off → on) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dog photo | 12 | 583 → 13 | 98% | 10,732 → 6,715 |
| Portrait | 12 | 456 → 40 | 91% | 8,591 → 6,408 |
| White dog | 12 | 422 → 5 | 99% | 8,870 → 1,861 |
| Flower | 12 | 688 → 160 | 77% | 8,509 → 6,510 |
| Painting | 12 | 2,389 → 400 | 83% | 19,130 → 11,776 |
| Dog photo | 20 | 972 → 38 | 96% | 12,913 → 8,913 |
| Portrait | 20 | 677 → 31 | 95% | 10,913 → 7,768 |
| White dog | 20 | 1,127 → 12 | 99% | 13,611 → 3,959 |
| Flower | 20 | 1,217 → 164 | 87% | 11,787 → 8,535 |
| Painting | 20 | 4,430 → 421 | 90% | 23,857 → 13,306 |
| Dog photo | 30 | 1,733 → 36 | 98% | 16,345 → 10,062 |
| Portrait | 30 | 1,355 → 31 | 98% | 14,044 → 9,287 |
| White dog | 30 | 1,686 → 15 | 99% | 15,255 → 4,427 |
| Flower | 30 | 1,524 → 133 | 91% | 13,249 → 9,351 |
| Painting | 30 | 6,091 → 376 | 94% | 26,264 → 13,799 |
| Dog photo | 40 | 2,252 → 45 | 98% | 17,756 → 11,030 |
| Portrait | 40 | 1,751 → 35 | 98% | 15,161 → 9,692 |
| White dog | 40 | 2,081 → 17 | 99% | 16,758 → 6,980 |
| Flower | 40 | 1,873 → 134 | 93% | 14,608 → 10,299 |
| Painting | 40 | 7,977 → 363 | 95% | 27,919 → 13,951 |
Lone stitches drop by 77-99%. Thread changes drop too, by roughly a quarter to two thirds.
2. The thing nobody counts: thread changes
Once cleanup is on, lone stitches stay low even at 40 colours — under 1% of all stitches on every photo we tried except the painting. What keeps growing is thread changes: how many times you put the needle down, cut, and start a new colour. That is the cost you feel.
| Photo | Changes at 12 colours | At 40 | Growth | Colour fidelity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dog photo | 6,715 | 11,030 | +64% | 65 → 82 |
| Portrait | 6,408 | 9,692 | +51% | 84 → 89 |
| White dog | 1,861 | 6,980 | +275% | 69 → 89 |
| Flower | 6,510 | 10,299 | +58% | 68 → 78 |
| Painting | 11,776 | 13,951 | +18% | 63 → 64 |
Going from 12 to 40 colours buys you real colour accuracy — and costs thousands of extra thread changes. That is the trade we show on screen before you start.
How we measured it
- Our own engine, the same code the site runs — not a separate script.
- 200 stitches across (40,000 stitches), the paid size. Free size is 60 across.
- Cleanup at 0 and at 55, which is the default the site loads with.
- Minimum 15 stitches per colour, same as the site.
- A lone stitch is a stitch with no orthogonally adjacent stitch of the same colour.
- Thread changes are colour changes counted along each row — an approximation of re-threading, not an exact count of how you personally stitch.
What this does not show
- Five photos is five photos. Your photo may behave differently — the tool tells you its own numbers.
- We did not compare against other converters. We cannot run their engines honestly, so we do not claim a ranking.
- Hours are an estimate from stitch count and thread changes, not a measurement of anyone stitching.
- These are our definitions of "lone stitch" and "thread change". Other tools count differently, so numbers are not comparable across tools.
Try it with your own photo — free, no signup, nothing leaves your device.