Projects and the tracker: marking what you have stitched and following your progress

A project is a chart you are stitching from, together with your marks on it. The tracker keeps you from losing your place: you tick off stitched crosses right on the chart, and the site counts what is left. These marks feed your stitching diary, your run of days in a row, your badges, and your place in the shared table if you agreed to take part. It all starts with the «Stitch this» button.

How to start a project

Log in (at /en/login; how to create an account is described in Account and settings) and open «My projects» in the top menu. The «＋ Start a project» button leads to the «Start a project» page with two choices:

«From the chart catalogue» – the gallery opens. Find a chart and click «Stitch this» on its page.
«From the kits catalogue» – the kits catalogue opens. If a kit has a chart linked to it, its page carries a «Chart: …» line with a link. The project starts from that chart's page, with the same «Stitch this» button. A kit with no chart cannot be turned into a project.

A project from your own chart starts on that chart's page: «My patterns» → «Share» → «Stitch this». The same goes for a chart someone has shared with you.

A paid chart can be stitched once you have bought it.

You can have only one project per chart. Clicking «Stitch this» again opens the same project rather than a new one.

Where to find your projects

«My projects» lists all your projects. Each one shows a small progress picture, the title and a line such as «120 / 4500 ✕ (3%) · 12 colours». The title opens the tracker. The «Delete» button asks «Delete this project?» and removes only the project – the chart itself stays where it is.

«Dashboard» has a «Continue stitching» block with your projects, a progress bar and a «Continue» button. At the top right is an «All projects» link with their number.

How to work in the tracker

At the top of the page are the chart's title and size, below them a panel of buttons and the chart itself in coloured cells.

«✓ Mark» – click a cell and it fades and gets a green tick. You can drag the mouse along a row with the button held down, and every cell on the way is marked. Empty cells with no cross in them are not marked.
«✗ Unmark» – removes the mark from a cell. The tracker has no separate undo button: a wrong mark is taken off with this button.
«✋» – moves the chart with the mouse or a finger without marking anything.
«+», «−», «⤢» and «1:1» – zoom. The mouse wheel scrolls the chart; the wheel with Ctrl held zooms in and out.

On the right of the panel is the counter «Crosses: N / M (P%)». If the chart has back stitch, knots or beads, the panel gains the buttons «Crosses», «Back stitch», «Knots», «Beads» (only those the chart has), and each gets its own counter under the panel. Choose «Back stitch», for example, and mark lines without touching the cross counter.

On a phone you zoom and move the chart with two fingers, and a single tap with «✓ Mark» selected marks a cell. To move the chart with one finger, choose «✋».

From the keyboard: click the chart, then the arrow keys move a cursor across the cells, Shift with an arrow moves ten at once. Enter or Space marks what is under the cursor, Esc cancels. Plus and minus change the zoom, 0 is actual size, 1 fits the chart.

How to save your progress

The tracker does not save marks on its own. While anything is unsaved, an orange dot shows beside the counter. Click «💾 Save» or press Ctrl+S (Cmd+S on a Mac): you will see «Saved · N of M», and the dot disappears. If you try to leave the page with unsaved marks, the browser asks whether you really want to go.

If the project is open in two tabs or on two devices and you saved it in one place, saving in the other shows «Progress changed elsewhere – reload the page.» Reload the page and the marks made elsewhere will be there. This is how the site stops one tab from silently overwriting another.

The progress picture

Under the tracker is the «Progress picture» section. It is a small copy of the chart in which what you have stitched is brighter than the rest. The site draws it by itself a few minutes after you save; until then it says «The picture is drawn a few minutes after you stitch.» The same picture appears in «My projects» and on the «Dashboard». Uploading your own photographs of the work to a project is not possible.

Below it there may be a «What I am missing» block: how much thread to buy for the rest of the chart, taking your stash into account. More in the Stash article.

How to start a project over

Under the progress picture is a «Start over» button. It resets nothing straight away; it opens a confirmation page with two lists.

«What is cleared» – every marked cell (the cloth becomes clean) and the progress picture.
«What stays» – the stitching diary (how much you stitched on which day), what this chart has already paid you, and the archive: how many cells were marked and whether the project was finished.

«Yes, start over» clears the marks; «Back» returns you to the tracker with nothing changed. The same cells are never paid for twice. If the project has been started over before, the page has a «This project has been started over before» section with the dates.

The states of a project

A project has no status switch, but it is always in one of these states:

In progress – you mark crosses as much and as often as you like. To put a project aside, simply do not open it – it loses nothing.
Finished – everything is marked: the crosses and, if the chart has them, back stitch, knots and beads. A line about the finished piece appears on your «Wall» (it names the chart only if the chart is in the catalogue). If the chart is in the catalogue, the project goes into the «Finished pieces» section of your profile and counts towards the «First finished piece» badge and the ones after it. Unmarking a cell later does not reopen the project.
Chart withheld by the moderators – if the chart has been hidden pending moderation, or held because of a rights holder's claim, the tracker shows an explanation with a date instead of the chart. Your progress is saved, but the chart cannot be stitched from while the measure stands. That page has a «Contact support» link.
Access to the chart revoked – if the author of a private chart stopped sharing it with you, the project stays in your list marked «access to this pattern was revoked». It can only be deleted.

If the site administration deletes a chart you were stitching from, the project is deleted with it and you receive a notification. The stitching days in your statistics remain.

The diary, the run and your time zone

Your profile (click your «@username» in the header) has a «Stitching» section: the total number of stitches, the number of days in a row, the count for the last seven days, and a grid of squares covering half a year. Hold the mouse over a square to see the date and that day's stitches. Shades appear in the grid once there are enough stitching days to compare.

Everything you marked and saved goes here, including stitching on your own unpublished charts. Unmarking a cell lowers the number. «Start over» does not touch the diary.

Days are counted in your own time zone, not the server's. You set it in «Settings» in the «Time zone» field (you can choose «Ask my browser»). Days already recorded are not recounted when you change the zone, and the site does not let you change it too often.

The run is how many days in a row you have stitched. For every 30 stitching days within the run, it earns a spare day that saves it when you miss one day (no more than two spare days at a time). If you know you will not be stitching, «Settings» has an «Away» section: enter the «From» and «To» dates and the run will not break. You can only say so in advance, starting from tomorrow, never after the fact. The limits on how long you can be away are written under the fields. Neither a spare day nor time away makes the run longer – they only keep it from breaking. Outlined squares in the grid are such days the run survived, and only you see them.

What stitching earns

Not every cross is «credited». Credited stitches are the ones on charts from the catalogue, as long as the chart is not too small. Credited stitches add up to:

the «A thousand crosses» badge and the rungs after it;
a place in the «Who stitched how much» table (if you agreed to take part);
units, the site's internal currency. They are paid once a day for the previous day's stitching, and the site may limit how much can be earned in one day. More in the Economy and reputation article.

Who sees your stitching

In «Settings», in the «Who sees what» section, you choose «Everyone», «Signed-in people» or «Only me» for each part of your profile:

«My stitching history» – the «Stitching» section of your profile.
«What I am stitching» – the «Finished pieces» section. It holds only projects on charts from the catalogue, and the caption leads to the chart's page in the gallery, not to your project: the project itself is only ever visible to you.
«What I am stitching right now» – the line «Now stitching: …» under your name. It appears while you are saving progress and disappears some time after your last save. Only charts from the catalogue are named. By default nobody sees this line.

The «Who stitched how much» table

The table shows who stitched how many credited crosses over a «Day», «Week» or «Month» – among «Everyone» or only «People I follow» (that needs you to be logged in). The end of the period is shown in your time zone; without logging in, in UTC. The table has no speed, no hours and no list of charts.

By default you are not in the table. To take part, open the «Public comparison» section in «Settings» and tick «Let my results be compared with other people's». The same place has a «See what this table looks like» link – the table is not in the site menu. You can untick the box at any time and you will disappear from the tables almost at once. The shared list is refreshed every few minutes.