Hello Mary,

You can use a fabric calculator for the conversion and we have here on our website under the Fabric section. Or you can simply take the stitch count and divide each number by 16. That will give you your finished dimensions and then just add how many inches you want on each side to those numbers and that's how big of a piece of fabric that you will need. Hope this helps!

~Kristi @ ECS

Thank you!!

If stitching on 16 ct Aida, first divide 300 by 16. the result is 18.75 inches. Next divide 352 by 16; the result is 22 inches. Most framers recomend adding 8 inches to each of the width and height of the design size. Therefore the size of the fabric should be 26 inches by 30 inches.

Gee, are the framers selling the fabric, too? :) shouldn't 3" each side be plenty? I can remember when the designers recommended 2"! :) But then, I'm old...out of the loop...but I doubt you'll ever find a kit with that kind of margins... LOL

I must be from the same "old school" VCESS; I learned to add a minimum of 2 inches extra on each side
Of fabric for mounting and framing, though I normally add 3-inches to each side. Some of it may be from deciding on using matting and how much background fabric wants to be seen as well. Fortunately there aren't any cross stitch police to blow any whistles on us..... :)

Some of us would be quite deaf! LOL. Funny, I should mention that...What? :)

Several years ago i read something about how many inches to leave on each side of the design for framing. The answer was four. Many years before that I did a Dimensions kit of a Hummingbird and Hibiscus. My mother liked Hummingbird and had them outside her kitchen window. So I took the finished piece to the framer in town. She said that I should stitch three inch wide strips of fabric to all four sides in order to have enough fabric to pull to the back over the foam core. A friend let me use her machine. As soon as I could afford one I bought my own machine. Now I add strips of fabric to the edges of my designs. It makes it easier to stitch when the stitches are close to a border, because you move the fabric left, right or up in the embroidery frame or hoop. On ornaments I take of the strips and save them for reuse. I use safety pins to hold the strips together.

Sounds like an awful lot of work that I would never get around to doing...I'll keep it simple, add the 6" to design size. :)