What Size Will my Project Be if I Change the Mesh of the Canvas?

It can be frustrating. You love the project, but it’s charted for a size of canvas you dislike, or don’t have, or can’t see.

But how can you figure out what size canvas you’ll need of the canvas you want.

It sounds hard, but actually with a simple calculator it’s easy.

Here’s how to do the size conversion. You go by the finished size of the piece.

If you have a stitch count you divide each of the numbers by the count of the canvas.

So if the size was 120 x 120 then it would be

• 10 x 10 on 12 mesh
• 9 1/4 x 9 1/4 on 13 mesh
• 8 2/3 x 8 2/3 on 14 mesh
• 6 2/3 x 6 2/3 on 18 mesh
• 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 on 22 mesh
• 5 x 5 on 24 mesh

The only ones of these that come out the exact size are 12, 18 and 24; the other ones are approximate.

If you don’t know the stitch count, you have an extra step before that division. You need to find the stitch count of the original piece. So if it’s 8″ square on 18 mesh, then you take 8 x 18 to get a stitch count of 144.

Then do the division for your preferred canvas.

To figure cut size for your canvas add either 3 or 4 inches to your finished size for both directions. Adding 3″ gives you a margin of 1 1/2″ all around, which is what many commercial canvases use these days. Adding 4″ gives you a margin of 2″ all around, which is what many stitchers prefer.

If you put more than one project on a single piece of canvas, you don’t need to leave 2″ between them. The minimum space you’ll need will be enough to finish each properly. If you don’t know how you’ll finish them I’d leave 1 1/2 to 2 inches.