brodette

broh-DET

Inspired by the French word for embroidery.

Brodette is a coined word that borrows from broderie (embroidery), brodeuse (a female embroiderer), and broder (to embroider). It sounds like it should exist in French. It doesn't. We made it up.

What Brodette does

Two things, both for stitchers.

Create patterns your way

Start from a photo, custom text, pixel art, colouring page, or a blank canvas and turn it into a cross-stitch pattern with DMC thread codes. Edit every stitch. Export a printable PDF chart. Everything runs in your browser.

Buy and sell patterns

Browse patterns made by the Brodette community. Buy once, download your PDF chart instantly. If you're a maker, list your own patterns and earn from every sale.

Who it's for

Built for stitchers, not software users.

Every cross-stitch tool on the market was designed for people who happen to cross-stitch. They look like developer utilities. Blue/teal accent colors, system fonts, settings panels that feel like tax software.

Brodette is designed for the craft itself. Warm surfaces that feel like opening a beautiful supply box. Serif typography that feels hand-set. A cross-stitch grid motif woven into the interface. Patient, cared-for, unhurried. Like the craft.

Under the hood

The engine matters.

A cross-stitch pattern takes 40+ hours to finish. If the color matching is wrong, you won't find out until you're 20 hours in. That's the problem every stitcher has had with auto-generated patterns.

Brodette uses CIE LAB color science and k-means clustering to find the best DMC thread colors for your specific photo. Not the closest colors in RGB space (which lies about what your eyes see), but the most perceptually accurate match across the full 452-color DMC palette. The difference shows in skin tones, gradients, and any pattern you'd actually want to finish.

  • 452 DMC thread colors
  • CIE LAB + CIEDE2000 matching
  • Edit every individual stitch
  • Printable PDF with shopping list
  • Background removal
  • Free for small patterns

Try it yourself.

Upload a photo and see what your pattern looks like. No signup, no payment, no commitment.