Patterns cover the range of sizes from little freebies from the Internet to huge pieces like a Heaven and Earth Designs pattern or a Mirabilia. Information you can enter includes the pattern name, designer or source, stitch count, and what threads and/or embellishments the pattern calls for. You can also associate a piece of fabric from your stash with a pattern.

If a fabric is marked as kitted, any threads and/or embellishments needed for it will be checked against what you have in your stash. If they’re missing, or you don’t have enough to meet what the pattern calls for, they will be added to the shopping list. If you don’t have a fabric associated with the pattern, it will also be displayed on the shopping list to remind you to pick up fabric for it.

As long as you have fabric associated with the pattern, marking the pattern as in progress will note the date you started (although you can always adjust it if needed!). When you finish the project, mark the pattern as complete and the program will record the finish date as well. If you choose, it will also remove the items from your stash that were likely used up in the project (according to your settings) – so you can keep track as you go or let the app do it for you. You can always find a record of these finishes from the pattern page, so you can check what fabric you used for it.

In the overview list, patterns are sorted alphabetically by designer and then by name. The checkbox allows you to toggle whether a pattern is kitted or not from the list. A grayed out pattern in the master view is one that you no longer have in stash.

Fabric helps track what you already have in your stash.  Information you can enter includes the fabric manufacturer, type, color, count, and size in inches.

Fabric is treated differently than threads or embellishments in that you must enter duplicates separately, instead of just increasing the number owned. That allows you to easily see how much fabric you have on the overview list, as well as quickly seeing what fabric you have that isn’t associated with a pattern already.

If the fabric is associated with a pattern that’s in progress, the start date is shown here – and the completion date, if the project has been finished! You can always record notes about the fabric, the project, or any substitutions you might have made here, keeping them for your records.

On the overview list, fabric is sorted alphabetically by manufacturer (which is not shown), then type, count (increasing), and finally color. The checkbox shows if the fabric has been assigned to a pattern. On the master list, grayed out fabrics indicate pieces that have been completed.

Most stitchers would agree that the threads on hand form a very important part of the stash. Information you can enter about threads in the stash includes the manufacturer, type (have to track all those DMC variations somehow!), and color, as well as how many are in your stash and how many additional skeins you want to purchase.

The info page will also show you how many skeins are needed to finish kitting patterns and the total number to purchase on your next trip to your local needlework store, as well as what patterns use that particular thread.

On the overview list, threads are sorted alphabetically by manufacturer, type, and then code. (If the code starts with a number, then it is sorted in increasing order.)

Embellishments can really make a project pop, but they can be expensive, so it’s important to track what beads, buttons, and other small things might be in your stash. Information you can enter for these includes the manufacturer, type, and a code or name, as well as how many you have and how many extras you wish to purchase.

The info page will show you if you need any more in order to complete kitting the patterns you have marked, as well as the total number to buy on your next trip to your local needlework store. You also have a list of the patterns that call for this embellishment.

On the overview list, embellishments are sorted alphabetically by manufacturer, type, and then code. (If the code starts with a number, then it is sorted in increasing order.)

The type of item that is created will depend on which item type is active when you press the + button. If you are in the pattern list, for example, the button will create a new pattern. If you are on a thread info page and hit the button, you’ll create a new thread – and it will copy much of the information from the previous thread, so you can easily enter multiple similar threads. Simple!

If you want to add multiple items at once, please look at the information below on importing information into the stash.

The pencil button will appear in the top bar when you are looking at the thread or embellishments list. If you press this, a dialog window will pop up that shows all the items of that type that have been entered into the program, along with how many of each you own.

The buttons to either side of the number allow you to adjust the quantity up or down for each item, without having to enter its info page to make the adjustment individually.

Find the item on one of the lists and press and hold it until the main bar changes, as shown in the screenshot to the right. In this mode, you can select multiple items to delete.

When you have selected all the items you wish to delete, touch the trash can in the top right corner. This will delete all selected items, as shown by the darker background color. It will not ask for confirmation before doing so, so be careful! If you need to exit without deleting anything, you can instead hit the check in the upper left corner.

You cannot delete an item from within its information page.

In most cases, deleting an item only deletes that particular item. However, when you delete a pattern, you also delete any fabric associated with it as a finish. If you no longer own the pattern and wish to remove it from the stash list while preserving the finish information, select “Remove From Stash” from the menu on the pattern information page instead.

That’s what makes this such a powerful tool, but it does require a little bit of work on your end to make it happen. StashCache won’t know what to add to the shopping list if you don’t tell it what each pattern needs.

One way is to import a text file that already has all of the information entered for a particular pattern. That may be easier in some cases, but it’s also easy to enter in the information in the app itself.

If you press the pencil above the threads list, a dialog box will pop up showing the complete list of threads entered into the program, whether or not they are in your stash. You can scroll through the list and adjust the quantity of each as called for by the pattern.

If the pattern calls for a thread that is not in the program, you can hit the “Add New” button at the bottom and it will create a new thread, which you can provide the information for. It will already have a link to the pattern that created it, but if the pattern calls for more than one you will have to go back and edit the quantity through the pattern.

The pencil above the embellishments list works the same way for embellishments.

If you have not chosen a fabric for a pattern, it will tell you what size fabric you need, based on stitch count for the pattern and the defaults that you set in the settings menu. If you press the pencil associated with the fabric, it will give you three options: choosing a piece of fabric from your stash, entering a new fabric, or removing the existing fabric.

If you choose to create a new fabric, it will create a new fabric for you and bring you to the fabric info page for you to enter the information on it. Choosing to use existing fabric will show you all the fabric you own that could fit the pattern, based on the stitch count and the defaults in the settings menu, including fabric assigned to another pattern. If you choose fabric assigned to another pattern, the other pattern will revert to having no fabric set. Finally, you can remove the existing fabric without having to choose a new one.

Some of us (myself included!) collect more patterns than we’re actively looking to have the materials on hand for at any given point. Once you’re ready to start putting the materials together, you just need to mark the pattern as kitted to start checking if you have the materials you need.

You can do this by either checking the box on the pattern info page that says “Kitted?” or by ticking the checkbox on the list of patterns in your stash. Once a pattern is marked as kitted, the app checks to see what materials it needs and checks that against what you have in your stash – including what other patterns are marked as kitted. Anything that’s missing gets added to your shopping list and you’re good to go!

If you’re like me, the idea of entering a lot of information on a small phone keyboard is not very appealing. That’s why I’ve made it easy to create a text file on your computer to import information into your stash. It does require that you follow a specific format when writing up the text file, so I’ve put together a whole page about it, including template files and some common information for you to download.

You will need to choose where to find the file. There are two easy ways to get the information to your phone or tablet – you can e-mail it to yourself as an attachment and download it, or save it on some kind of cloud service and access it that way (I’m a fan of Dropbox). If you e-mailed it to yourself, it should be in your downloads folder; if it’s in the cloud, you might need the appropriate cloud app on your phone to access it.

Choose the appropriate location to find the file and then click on it. The app will hum along for a little bit to import the data. It should pop up a message that says “File imported successfully!” If not, the error message should give you a hint if it was something in the file format or a letter where it should have been a number.

Any import will be added to the existing stash, so it’s better to start small and build up – that way it will be easier to catch any formatting problems and figure out where something went wrong.

Cloud saves are a great concept (and a possible future feature!) but in the meantime there’s an easy way to manually back-up your stash. Select “Export Stash” from the drop down menu. You’ll have the choice of what you’d like to do with the file – you can e-mail it to yourself or someone else, or upload it to a service like Dropbox. Choose the location or recipient and off it goes, providing you with an excellent backup.

If you have multiple devices, this is an easy way to keep your stash up to date on them. Remember, importing adds to the existing stash, so you might need to delete the existing information on the device first.

The export file produces a text file with all the information from your stash in a human-readable format – so you’re always able to take your data with you and not be tied to my app (although I hope you like it!). There’s more information about this on the format page.

If you’ve already entered the materials list for a pattern and your friends need a copy, you can easily export the information for that specific pattern to pass along to them (and they could easily import it into their stash!). On the pattern info page, the drop-down menu has an “Export Pattern” option that works much the same as the “Export Stash” does on the main page.

This export file will include the information about the pattern and its materials list, but not whether you are kitting it or what fabric you have associated with it (information that is included in your stash export).

Some of the settings are used for fabric calculations, while others apply to your shopping list or determining whether a piece of fabric will fit a given pattern. Settings are changed either by check box or by clicking the setting to adjust the number.