Page by page

[Nicola Main]

I've seen a lot of people lately stitching page by page. I've always thought that this would waste a lot of thread and why not just continue onto the next page and finish the colour you're on? What does everyone else think? I've included one of the photos which is actually on a group on Facebook. A lot of my Wrendales are on separate pages and thought I'd have to sellotape the bottom part to just continue on with it but may start doing it this way instead.

[Podolyanka]

I do stitch page by page, but not 10stitches x10stitches square by square, if you see what I mean. Accidentally, yesterday at one cross stitch site I saw a long thread which was started by a lady asking for advice- she stitched square by square and page by page, and ended in vertical lines distinctly seen. So she did not know what to do.

When I stitch, I try to stick to a certain part (page), but as I stitch cross country, I usually finish one person or animal or house, etc, then go to another. I am sure stitching with parking and 10x10 square by square comes from professionals who are limited in time and stitching is just a job. If I had to stitch like that I would bin all my stash at once and would start making rag rugs instead of cross stitching, - I need to have pleasure from stitching, not being stressed by it.

But then tastes differ.

[Nicola Main]

That's exactly how I feel. If it's not a pleasure to stitch then I won't stitch it. I tend to pick the colour nearest the centre and stitch all that part and then move on to another colour next to it. If I'm stitching anything with a face I try to do that first as I like to see the subject 'looking' at me as it spurs me on to finish it xxx

[kingfisher68(2)]

I think it is up to each individual as to what they feel most comfortable with when stitching. I do page by page & only since I've been on this forum I have been gridding my fabric. Also one of the members said she goes over the slightly thicker downward lines on the chart, marking it, so as to make it easier to count. I forgot to do that this time but I did it on a previous project & it helped a lot. One DMC kit I did, well tried to do, a while ago I gave up on as the supposedly thicker lines every 10 squares were hardly visible & it all mingled into one. I had not read about marking every 10 downward lines at that time.

If I go too far with one colour I find when I get to that section later on I am out with my stitches. I do not know why, it just happens so I prefer to stick to one or two blocks at a time. I can understand doing a face completely even if it does go partly on to another page.

As yet I cannot see any lines where stitching has been done on different days on kingfisher, nor did I see it on Pleasant Row Cottages. I remember one of the male members of the forum asked about the lines on stitching when I was working on P R Cotts but I could not see any on it. Unless I am the only one who cannot see them but others could & were too polite to say so!

BTW Nicola, I must have accidentally clicked on your name & I got your profile show8ing link to Orchard Cottage blog. Oh, it does look lovely where you live. Will read it properly later on. Hope you are not feeling affects of the winds today as it is supposedly going up to Scotland.

[Nicola Main]

BTW Nicola, I must have accidentally clicked on your name & I got your profile show8ing link to Orchard Cottage blog. Oh, it does look lovely where you live. Will read it properly later on. Hope you are not feeling affects of the winds today as it is supposedly going up to Scotland.

Oh thanks Izzi! I actually haven't wrote in my blog for over a year! The garden looks a bit different now, we no longer have the big cage up covering the hen house as the hen house is now in the veg plot at the bottom of the garden with the three hens in it. Sadly our fourth hen, Maud, was killed by a cat a month and a half ago so the others now no longer roam the whole garden unless someone is out there watching them. At least they have the bottom part to scrape about in! Really windy here today (heard it during the night too) and a few things have moved about but not too bad xxx

[kingfisher68(2)]

Yes it was such a shame about your hen being killed Nicola. Glad the others are OK bet they enjoy scratching around in the other area One of my friends kept chicken years ago & they enjoyed scratching around the piece of garden fenced off for them. Well, it was chicken wire fencing, so they could not be unhappy could they Think she had 6 but when she was expecting her first child she & her OH decided not to keep them so chicken went to a local farm. Their garden wasn't very big & they turned chicken area into a small lawn so by the time first little one was a toddler it was well settled grass.

[richardandtracy]

I do stitch page by page.
There are one or two reasons that seem fairly reasonable to me in my situation, which I'll enumerate:

1. My projects are big, approx. 100k stitches. Working to a page effectively limits the scope and treats each page as a 7k long project. That way I see a milestone occur after maybe 2 months, possibly a bit more. Stops feeling as if I've got nowhere.
2. As each page is finished it's possible to get a good idea of the final picture quality.
3. With a 20 page project, it simply isn't practical to stick all the pages together & work over the whole surface.
4. Gridding the whole fabric at once would take ages (week or more) and be very frustrating to spend so much time without making a stitch.
5. I have written my charting program to indicate the colours used on each page, so a user could buy only enough colours to do the page they are working on rather than the whole lot (which may well be in the several hundreds of skeins). It's not what I have actually done, but it is a possibility.
6. I know the 'safety factor' on the length in my thread lists, as it's specified in the chart document my charting program creates, so I have little concerns about running out of thread. The 'safety factor' may be tweaked by the user in my charting program if they feel happy to over-ride the default.

Regards,

Richard.

[rcperryls]

Another one of the the individual decisions that a stitcher makes. There is no rule. I am a cross country stitcher and while I focus on a page at a time, depending on the amount of thread I have when I reach the side or bottom of a page, and the color continues, and depending on how many stitches are continued on the next page, and on my mood at the time, I may or may not continue the color. Since I have been using my iPad and the Good Notes app, I find it very easy to get to the other pages I need. I don't see lines between pages in my pieces, but then I have seen very few lines from those who prefer parking or those who stick to each page. One of the things I love about stitching is there are no real rules and no right way or wrong way (the only serious and important suggestion is that all threads lay the same way and I guess if someone didn't want to do that, no one could stop them)

Carole