Plan a palette that is easy to sort
Estimate how much of your build belongs to each color family and spot rare colors before they become shopping blockers.
Try the numbers
A transparent estimate you can adjust
This is a planning estimate. Confirm the final color quantities, bead system, pack sizes, and heat guidance against your exported project and the manufacturer's instructions.
Evidence to use
A practical checkpoint from this guide
Example: a 1,200-bead koi uses a 55% orange body, 25% cream, 15% navy outline, and 5% black accents; the rare black pack deserves a spare check even though it is visually important.
- Think in color roles
- A sortable palette usually has a background, one or two structural colors, a dominant fill, supp
- Protect rare but meaningful accents
- Rare colors often carry eyes, whiskers, lettering, or the final highlight. Mark them as high att
- Sort by the next action
- Keep colors for the current row or block in a shallow tray and the reserve sorted separately. La
Think in color roles
A sortable palette usually has a background, one or two structural colors, a dominant fill, supporting midtones, and accents. The number of colors matters less than whether each one has a job. If three colors are all trying to be the same shadow, the builder gets complexity without a visible gain.
Estimate large roles first, then check the small roles. The goal is to order and stage the build, not to make a perfect prediction before the mapper has seen the image.
Protect rare but meaningful accents
Rare colors often carry eyes, whiskers, lettering, or the final highlight. Mark them as high attention even when the quantity is small. A small spare pack can be more valuable than another bag of the dominant color because a missing accent can stop the finish.
In the koi example, black is only 60 beads before spare, but it defines the outline and eye. Eight percent spare brings the planned black quantity to about 65; the orange body can tolerate a small substitution more easily.
Sort by the next action
Keep colors for the current row or block in a shallow tray and the reserve sorted separately. Label the tray with color name or code, not just a swatch. Similar colors become difficult to identify when they are loose and warm under a lamp.
The calculator is a planning lens. Replace its estimates with the creator's exported color table once the final pattern is approved, and keep the palette version alongside the shopping list.
Put this into practice
Refine this palette in the creator
Start with this resource's intent already attached. Your image stays in the browser while the creator turns it into an editable pattern.
Open in creator