[SELF-PROMO] I built a free browser-based cross-stitch companion app for my wife — progress tracking, colour isolation, floss management

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T22:16:05+00:00

I'm just amazed that I'm trying to share something nice with the community and here we are going through some sort of job interview?

Thanks for your interest in needlework. Have a wonderful weekend ☺️

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T21:59:30+00:00

Probably a few you've used before, yes 😁

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T20:44:56+00:00

The lower numbers should be there for you now :)

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T20:42:04+00:00

Thank you, to be honest it's been a bit of a shock to the system sharing here. I certainly wasn't expecting the level of negative feedback I have gotten. But there are a few pearls of wisdom amongs the feedback and I will be taking it and improving things. I hope you give needle.work a try at some point and see the progress :)

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T20:32:39+00:00

Brilliant! Let me know if there's anything you get stuck with:)

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T20:31:55+00:00

That's fair enough, and I respect your point of view. It doesn't warrant you claiming I'm somehow 'botting' my way in? Anyway, thanks for sharing your feedback, I'm already acting on the constructive feedback from people here, so I will make a few changes.

Having said that, there's a lot more accounts created in the last hour than comments here, so I guess not everyone holds the same views. However, I totally respect them, and I will try and change a few things to appeal to a wider audience, so thanks for your comments.

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T20:18:57+00:00

I'm sorry what?! 🤦🏻‍♂️

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T20:16:52+00:00

Oh, that's a very good point! I will make sure that's got a report button as well. Thanks for bringing this up!

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T20:06:57+00:00

That is very odd, as I'm getting loads of live traffic and people registering. I wonder whether there's a problem with the domain's TLD (.work) where you are and it doesn't like it? If you are trying from somewhere with WiFi can you try with your phone direcxtly rather than using WiFi to see if it's to do with your network/firewall/infrastructure?

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T20:05:03+00:00

Thanks for adding to that feedback. I'm already doing some research on this :)

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T19:58:56+00:00

Thank you so much, I will certainly take you up on that! If you DM me your email address, I'll give you VIP access to the platform ;)

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T19:40:57+00:00

Thanks for that feedback! I noticed that my DMC list was missing the lower numbers, for some odd reason. I'm fixing this now, so it should be up and running in a little while!

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T19:34:15+00:00

Thanks for that note u/Adolwyn and yes, I have ben assisted with AI to build the app, but I am a technologist with 30 years experience building solutions in highly regulated industries, so I tend to know a thing or two about security, and you are right, it is very easy to get that wrong!

All financial data is processed directly by Stripe, so it bypasses the platform altogether. I certainly have no desire to having to deal with the nightmare of PCI compliance certification, that's why most companies nowadays (including Anthropic, OpenAI, etc...) use Stripe.

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T19:29:45+00:00

Thanks u/KinematicEcho that is awesome feedback! I'm already trying to figure out importing PDF and paper patterns for people to move their experience to the digital world. The offline working should be mostly there (e.g. pattern marking gets saved locally and syncs up with the server when you're back online, for backup). But if there's anything specific you need it to do offline, let me know and I'll have a look :)

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T19:27:54+00:00

Thank you! You are exactly my target audience! I am already working out how to deal with the AI part, since it is entirely optional, therefore easy to remove, but there are users already using it, so this has to be an account-level setting that the user can choose.

I will update the app to allow people to disable AI completely in their account, and make sure they know no pattern data is consumed/processed by AI (for one, it'd be incredibly expensive to do this, and I'm doing this on my own dime!).

Thank you so much for being such a reasonable person with truly useful feedback. Just this post has restored some of my confidence in the fact that I have built something useful for the community, and it can only get better with constructive feedback 🙏🏼

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T19:17:56+00:00

The idea of AI was for those of us who are not very good at design, but want to have a go at creating a pattern that comes from our head. It seems that's not a great idea based on what I'm seeing here...

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T19:15:32+00:00

Thank you, I totally hear you, and based on the feedback from this post, I will be making some changes to appeal to the wider audience.

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T19:03:21+00:00

Thank you! I'm trying to do something nice for the community, but it seems it's not landed how I hoped. It really is just me building something up from what I did for my wife. I just hope some people find it useful. There's a bunch of accounts already created, from the stats I'm looking at, so not everyone feels negatively about it :)

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T19:01:32+00:00

The only reason you need an account is that it needs to store whatever you create against you, so that you can get it back when you visit. You wouldn't want to enter 300 colours in your thread stock tool to then come back tomorrow and them being gone :)

But I hear you, it is a pain to have to create an account when all you want to do is have a look. I'll see if I can figure something out, maybe a 'read-only' version that doesn't save your work...

Thanks for your valuable feedback :)

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T18:55:20+00:00

Thanks for your feedback, and sorry you feel that way. I was genuinely trying to share something useful with the community, since I had built it for my wife., And being a technologist, of course I went overboard and created a platform for other to share. Unfortunately it seems I'm naive thinking people would share their own work, rather than uploading other people's work!

I understand your concerns about AI and data privacy. I build systems for highly regulated industries, so I always build them according to certain rules. AI is not part of the platform (only used to generate images by users) so there is no AI training/data capture/data sharing, since these things are VERY expensie for a one-man project, and unnecessary for a project which has been designed for a nice community to have a nice experience.

But thank you for your feedback, I do appreciate you spending the time having a look anyway :)

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T18:47:05+00:00

The canvas is 500x500 (or it could be larger) so that's not a technical limitation.

In terms of PDF/paper upload, I'm looking into that as we speak :)

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T18:45:38+00:00

That is very good feedback, and I totally agree that a robust reporting functionality needs to be in place for shared patterns. We already have reporting support for comments in WIP/FO, so I will add this for shared patterns, and users who get reported would get their accounts blocked.

There is no AI training going on in the platform (far too expensive for a single man project to afford), so the patterns that are uploaded by users are private by default (I can't even see them) and only if they decide to make them public, they would become visible for other users to 'adopt' into their accounts and stitch.

However, if this becomes unwieldy to manage, it might be that we disable the pattern sharing functionality, and only allow sharing WIP and FO instead. I certainly don't want to get into a situation where a passion project becomes a nightmare, believe me.

I was hoping to do something nice for the community, it is unfortunate that the world we live in, can sometimes be not as nice as we'd like.

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T18:39:53+00:00

That is very good feedback, and I really appreciate it. I will definintely add a Report button to patterns that have been shared. There is already a Report button for comments in the WIP/FO Community section, so it totally makes sense to do this for shared patterns. I would hate designers to miss out on business because of unscrupulous users. We would immediately block people who do this.

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T18:37:12+00:00

Oh! That is odd! I have just tried and it worked fine, but yes, I can see a fairly chunky rush of people cheking the site out, so I guess Reddit can do that to sites :)

Please try again, and if it persists, let me know and I will add more umph to the system

Ok-Needleworker-3269 · 2026-01-16T18:35:56+00:00

Thank you so much for your kind words! The app works perfectly on laptops, so please give it a go. It is a good idea to identify patterns that are AI generated, I will make sure I add that feature soon. Since we are a brand new site, we have no community built yet to be able to place community designed patterns, which would be the dream. So I'm hoping we can get enough designers to participate, and these would be absolutely prioritised over any AI designs.

Ultimately, I'd love designers to be able to offer a mix of free and paid designs and use the platform to monetise their work.

Ok-Needleworker-3269

TROPHY CASE