Free browser-based bead pattern maker — no account, no install, no limits.
Krazy Stitcher runs entirely in your browser. There's nothing to download, install, or sign up for. Just open KrazyStitcher.html and start designing.
Click the New button in the top toolbar. In the dialog that appears, give your pattern a name, choose a stitch type (Loom is the simplest), and set the width and height in beads. Click Create, and you'll see an empty grid on the canvas ready for drawing.
The Draw tool is selected by default. Pick a color from the palette on the right side panel, then click or drag on the canvas to paint beads. Switch colors anytime by clicking a different swatch. That's the core workflow — everything else builds on it.
Click Save to store your pattern in the browser's local IndexedDB. This storage is unlimited and persists across sessions. For backup or sharing, use Save File to export a .bforge file.
The Krazy Stitcher interface has five main areas:
| Area | Location | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Top Toolbar | Top of screen | File operations, edit actions, transform tools, color tools, toggles, help |
| Tool Panel | Left side | Drawing tools and zoom controls (icon buttons) |
| Canvas | Center | The main editing area where you draw your pattern |
| Right Panel | Right side | Color palette, used colors, saved pattern list |
| Status Bar | Bottom | Pattern size, type, bead count, color count, storage info |
Scroll your mouse wheel to zoom in and out. Hold Space and drag to pan the canvas, or select the Pan tool. The current zoom level is shown in the bottom-right corner. Click the Fit button (or press Home) to zoom the entire pattern into view.
The bottom-left corner shows the current bead coordinates as you move the mouse over the canvas.
| Tool | Key | How It Works |
|---|---|---|
| Draw | D | Click or drag to paint beads with the selected color. This is the default tool. |
| Erase | E | Click or drag to remove beads (sets cells to empty/white). |
| Fill | F | Click a bead to flood-fill all connected beads of the same color with the selected color. Uses 4-directional connectivity. |
| Color Pick | I | Click any bead to make its color the active drawing color. Works like an eyedropper. |
| Line | L | Click to set the start point, then click again to draw a straight line between the two points. Uses Bresenham's line algorithm. |
| Rectangle | R | Click two corners to draw a rectangular outline. |
| Filled Rect | Shift+R | Click two corners to draw a solid filled rectangle. |
| Select | S | Click and drag to select a rectangular region. See Selection & Clipboard. |
| Text | T | Opens a dialog to enter text, then click to place it. See Text Tool. |
| Pan | Space | Drag the canvas to scroll around. You can also hold Space with any other tool active. |
Krazy Stitcher supports twelve stitch types. The stitch type determines how beads are laid out on the grid and affects the visual rendering, coordinate system, and finished size calculations.
| Stitch | Grid Layout | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Loom | Straight square grid, all rows and columns aligned | Loom beadwork, beginners, geometric patterns |
| Peyote | Odd rows offset right by half a bead width | Flat peyote stitch, the most popular off-loom stitch |
| Brick | Odd columns offset down by half a bead height (peyote rotated 90°) | Brick stitch earrings, small shapes |
| Peyote 2-Drop | Pairs of rows share the same offset | Faster beading with two beads picked up per stitch |
| Peyote 3-Drop | Groups of three rows share the same offset | Even faster multi-drop peyote |
| Peyote 4–9 Drop | Groups of 4 through 9 rows share the same offset | Advanced multi-drop peyote for wide, fast-coverage designs |
| Gourd Stitch | Alternating row offset (like peyote), used tubularly | Tubular peyote for covering round objects like bottles, ornaments |
| Herringbone | Square grid with pair-bracket visual guides every two columns | Herringbone (Ndebele) stitch visualization |
| RAW | Square grid with cross-stitch visual guides showing the four-bead units | Right Angle Weave visualization |
Krazy Stitcher ships with four bead color palettes:
| Palette | Colors | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Miyuki Delica | 64 colors | Based on popular Miyuki Delica 11/0 cylinder beads. Each color has a DB product ID. |
| Toho Round | 64 colors | Toho 11/0 round seed beads with Toho product IDs. |
| Preciosa | 64 colors | Czech Preciosa seed bead colors. |
| Generic 64 | 64 colors | A basic set of named colors, not tied to any brand. |
Use the search box above the palette to filter by color name or ID. Type "blue" to see all blue-family colors, or "DB0325" to find a specific Miyuki shade.
Below the palette grid, the Used in Pattern section shows every color currently present in your pattern. Click one to select it for drawing.
Krazy Stitcher can convert any photograph or image into a bead pattern. Click Import Photo in the toolbar to open the conversion dialog.
| Setting | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Max Width | Maximum width of the resulting pattern in beads. Height is calculated proportionally from the image aspect ratio and the bead type's aspect ratio. |
| Max Colors | The target number of colors after quantization (2–100). |
| Bead Type | The stitch type for the new pattern. Affects aspect ratio calculations. |
| Quantization | Median Cut is fast and produces good results. K-Means is slower but often finds more accurate color groupings, especially for images with subtle gradients. |
| Dithering | None maps each pixel to its nearest palette color. Floyd-Steinberg distributes quantization error to neighboring pixels, creating smoother gradients and more natural-looking transitions. |
| Brightness | Lighten or darken the image before conversion (-100 to +100). |
| Contrast | Increase or decrease tonal range (-100 to +100). |
| Saturation | Boost or reduce color intensity (-100 to +100). Set to -100 for grayscale. |
The dialog shows a side-by-side preview: your original image on the left and the converted bead pattern on the right. Click Update Preview after changing settings to see the effect before committing. When satisfied, click Import to create the pattern.
Click Recolor in the toolbar. Select a "From" color and a "To" color from the dropdowns (which list only colors currently used in the pattern), then click Replace. Every bead of the "From" color is instantly changed to the "To" color across the entire pattern.
Click Merge to combine two colors. Select the color you want to eliminate ("Merge This Color") and the color to replace it with ("Into This Color"). This is especially useful after photo import when the quantizer produces near-duplicate shades.
Click Cleanup to automatically remove "confetti" pixels — isolated single beads surrounded by a different color. The algorithm checks each bead's four neighbors; if all four neighbors share the same color and the center bead is different, it gets replaced with the majority color. This dramatically cleans up photo-converted patterns.
| Tool | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Mirror | Flips the pattern horizontally (left-to-right). Useful for creating symmetric designs. |
| Flip | Flips the pattern vertically (top-to-bottom). |
| Rotate | Rotates the pattern 90° clockwise. Width and height are swapped. Repeat three times for a full 360°. |
All transforms are undoable with Ctrl+Z. The undo system preserves both the grid data and the dimensions, so rotating and undoing works correctly.
Switch to the Select tool (S), then click and drag on the canvas to draw a selection rectangle. The selected region is highlighted with a dashed red border.
| Action | Shortcut | What It Does |
|---|---|---|
| Copy | Ctrl+C | Copies the selected region to the clipboard. |
| Paste | Ctrl+V | Pastes the clipboard contents at the current selection start point (top-left of selection rectangle). If no selection is active, pastes at (0, 0). |
| Delete | Delete | Clears (erases) all beads inside the selected region. |
Click the T button in the tool panel (or press T) to open the text dialog. Enter the text you want to place and choose a font size:
| Size | Bead Height | Bead Width per Character | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 (tiny) | 5 beads | ~4 beads | Small labels, annotations |
| 7 (small) | 7 beads | 5 beads | Standard text (native font size) |
| 9 (medium) | 9 beads | ~6 beads | Larger text, headings |
Click Place Text, then click anywhere on the canvas to stamp the text at that position. Text is rendered in the current drawing color using a built-in 5×7 pixel font that supports A–Z, 0–9, and common symbols (space, period, hyphen, exclamation, question mark, colon, hash).
Once placed, text becomes regular beads — you can edit, erase, or recolor individual cells.
When you import a photo, the original image is automatically stored as a trace overlay. This semi-transparent image sits behind your bead grid, letting you see the original while you hand-edit the converted pattern.
The Trace slider appears in the toolbar when a trace image is loaded. Slide it to adjust overlay opacity from 0% (invisible) to 100% (fully opaque). Click the × button next to the slider to remove the trace entirely.
Click Counts to see a sortable table of every color in your pattern with the number of beads and percentage. Click column headers to sort. Colors used fewer than a configurable threshold (default: 5 beads) are highlighted in orange — these are candidates for merging to simplify your palette.
Click Size to calculate the real-world dimensions of your finished piece. Select your bead type from the dropdown:
| Bead Type | Width × Height |
|---|---|
| 11/0 Miyuki Delica | 1.6mm × 1.3mm |
| 11/0 Toho Round | 2.2mm × 2.2mm |
| 8/0 Round | 3.0mm × 3.0mm |
| 15/0 Round | 1.5mm × 1.5mm |
| 10/0 Delica | 2.2mm × 1.6mm |
| Custom | Enter your own dimensions |
The result shows width and height in both millimeters and inches.
Click Remap to convert all bead colors in your pattern to the nearest match in a different brand palette. This is useful when you designed with Miyuki Delicas but want to switch to Toho Rounds (or vice versa). Click Preview first to see the color mapping before committing.
Click Score to see a 0–100 difficulty rating for your pattern. The score considers:
Ratings: Beginner (0–20), Easy (21–40), Intermediate (41–60), Advanced (61–80), Expert (81–100).
Click Export PDF to generate a print-ready PDF of your pattern. The PDF includes the color grid and a color legend with bead IDs. Opens in a new tab for printing or saving.
Click Export PNG to save the pattern as a PNG image file. Each bead renders as a 10×10 pixel square. The resulting image is useful for sharing previews online, embedding in documents, or printing.
Click Text Chart to export a text file containing:
The Word file is formatted for standard letter-size paper and can be printed directly.
Save File exports the current pattern as a .bforge JSON file. This includes all grid data, colors, dimensions, and pattern settings. Use this to back up your work, share patterns with other Krazy Stitcher users, or transfer patterns between computers.
Load File imports a previously saved .bforge or .json file and adds it to your saved patterns.
Krazy Stitcher stores all patterns in your browser's IndexedDB, which provides virtually unlimited local storage (typically several hundred megabytes or more). Patterns persist across browser sessions — you don't need to save to a file every time.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| D | Draw tool |
| E | Erase tool |
| F | Fill tool |
| I | Color picker / eyedropper |
| L | Line tool |
| R | Rectangle (outline) |
| Shift+R | Filled rectangle |
| S | Select tool |
| T | Text tool |
| Ctrl+Z | Undo |
| Ctrl+Y | Redo |
| Ctrl+C | Copy selection |
| Ctrl+V | Paste at selection |
| Delete | Clear selection |
| + or = | Zoom in |
| - | Zoom out |
| Home | Zoom to fit |
| Space (hold) | Pan mode (with any tool) |
| Scroll wheel | Zoom in/out |
Krazy Stitcher handles patterns up to 1000×1000 beads, but very large patterns may render slower. For best performance on complex designs, keep the grid under 500×500 beads. Turn off the grid overlay at high zoom levels if rendering feels sluggish.
| Problem | Solution |
|---|---|
| Pattern not saving | Click Save manually. Check the status bar's storage indicator. If your browser's IndexedDB is full (very rare), export patterns as files and clear old ones. |
| Photo import looks washed out | Increase contrast and saturation in the photo import dialog. Try K-Means quantization for better color accuracy. |
| Too many colors after import | Lower the Max Colors setting, or import with a higher number and use Merge afterward for more control. |
| Canvas feels sluggish | Zoom out or turn off the grid display. Very large patterns (800+ beads wide) require more rendering time. |
| Undo doesn't restore correctly after rotate | This was fixed in the current version. If you're seeing issues, refresh the page to load the latest code. |
| Can't find my saved patterns | Patterns are stored per browser and per domain. If you opened the file from a different location or browser, previous patterns won't appear. Use Save File to export important work. |
| PDF export opens blank | Some browsers block pop-ups. Allow pop-ups for the Krazy Stitcher page, or right-click the Export PDF button and choose "Open in new tab." |
Krazy Stitcher — Free, open, browser-based bead pattern maker. No tracking, no ads, no account required.