Meet the Team Behind StitchCraft
StitchCraft was built by two people who love cross stitch and hated the tools available. Emma Whitfield, a lifelong stitcher and UX designer, teamed up with iOS developer James Harrington to create the pattern maker they wished existed — modern, intuitive, and designed for real crafters.
Our Story
It started with a shared frustration. Emma had been cross stitching for over fifteen years, converting photos by hand using spreadsheets and outdated desktop software that hadn't been updated since the early 2000s. James, a developer who picked up stitching as a creative outlet, couldn't believe how painful the process was.
Over coffee at a local craft fair in 2023, Emma pulled out a notebook filled with wireframes — her vision for a pattern maker that would feel native on a phone, handle DMC color matching automatically, and let you track your progress stitch by stitch. James took one look and said, “I can build that.”
The first prototype came together in a weekend. Within months, StitchCraft had grown into a full-featured app used by thousands of crafters around the world. But the core idea never changed: make it simple, make it beautiful, and build it for the people who actually stitch.
The Team
Emma Whitfield
Co-Founder & Design Lead
Emma picked up her first cross stitch needle at thirteen and never looked back. After years of wrestling with clunky grid editors and faded paper charts, she envisioned a tool that would feel as intuitive as modern design software. With a background in UX design and a drawer full of half-finished samplers, she mapped out every screen of StitchCraft before a single line of code was written.
James Harrington
Co-Founder & Lead Developer
James is an iOS developer who discovered cross stitch through a weekend craft workshop. What started as a curiosity turned into a genuine passion — and a frustration with the tools available. When Emma showed him her sketches for a better pattern app, he built the first working prototype in a single weekend. That prototype became StitchCraft.
Why We Built StitchCraft
We believe cross stitch deserves better tools. Most pattern software was designed decades ago for desktop computers and never evolved. We wanted something you could use on the couch, on the train, or at a stitch-along with friends — right from your phone.
Every feature in StitchCraft exists because one of us needed it. The photo converter came from Emma's frustration with manual pixel counting. The progress tracker was born when James lost his place in a 40-color project. The DMC color matching engine was refined over hundreds of test patterns until the results looked right on real fabric.
We're crafters first and technologists second. That's what makes StitchCraft different.
Start Creating Your First Pattern
Download StitchCraft free and turn your favorite photos into cross stitch patterns with accurate DMC colors.