Jo's Stitching 2023

[Steam.Jo]

Stitch! Stitch! Quick!

Just my thoughts I will need to do a fair bit of sorting out and scanning/printing out of the pattern before I could start.


I also need to decide if I wish (have the self control/patience) to add more backstitching to bring out the butterflies on this piece

Jo

[Mabel Figworthy]

Stitch! Stitch! Quick!

[rcperryls]

Stitch! Stitch! Quick!

Couldn't say it any better

Carole

[Steam.Jo]

Its arrived



There are 90 different colours in that packet:



And while the instructions shows 25 pages it lies



Just about to give my A3 printer a bit of exercise enlarging all of those sheets. It will also scan to pdf


I get the feeling it was a good job I ordered 4 more thread organisers from China this morning https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004782876878.html

Jo

P.S. Before you ask £50

[Mabel Figworthy]

That is going to be quite a challenge, enoy!

[Steam.Jo]

I just measured the material that came with the kit it is 90cm (35 1/2") wide so I checked the HEAD page again: The piece is only 21" wide if you do it over 1 on 25 count. The kit came with 18 count so it is going to be 29" wide so it is not going to fit on the frame which has my butterflies on it.

It was a hard choice but I was force to place an order with Very Crafty for a 40" wide rolling frame (and a Christmas crackers card kit to make up for the postage )

Just finished the printing onto A3 and sorted out the 167 skeins of thread:



They are all there plus a few have more skeins than on the chart, which is the count for the 25 count even weave, so I am hopeful I have the correct number.


Next challenge is going to be preparing the Aida. I can see why people might grid out the material with this one

Jo

[rcperryls]

It was starting with HAED charts that got me into gridding and I have ne er regretted it. I rarely have large amount of stitches to now. I also started stitching on 25 ct fabric evenweave fabric, and stitching 1 over 1. I am always amazed when objects, people, background ends up looking like it is supposed to. I use a program on my iPad to download the pdf chart so that I can enlarge sections on my iPad to focus on areas. My eyes don’t see small detail charts anymore. I am so looking forward to seeing you stitch this. I think it will help motivate me to get back to my own sadly neglected projects.

Carole

[Serinde]

Its arrived

Too late!

And of course you must (absolutely must) have the correct tools for the job in hand. Clearly.

[Steam.Jo]

[Grump mode on ] The fabric supplied is 35" by 40". My calculations is this piece on the 18 count fabric will be 29" by 36.4". HEAD recommend 3" on every side spare for mounting purposes.

The only piece of spare fabric I have which is large enough is a piece of 20 count. Which would result in a 26 1/4" by 32 3/4" piece if I did it over 1

[Grump Mode off ]

Cheese and Port time

Jo

[fccs]

A good framer can get by with much less than 3" (although that is the ideal and is what I shoot for). You can always stitch extra fabric around the stitched piece if necessary as it won't be seen. You can also easily crop the image to gain more space. In other words, I think your original fabric would work.

[Steam.Jo]

That's a good idea Debby. I was concerned with only 1 1/2" to go round the rollers I would be working very close to the rollers (for a very long time )

I'll see what material I might have that could go top and bottom to extend the 18 count


Update: I couldn't find any long narrow bits in my cross stitch fabric stash but I did find a piece of 22 count cream Aida that is big enough. I had a "feel" of the piece of 20 count white evenweave I found and it has got a very nice texture in comparison to the Aida. Someone has been having a little stitch in its top corner:



It looks like they were suffering with the thread going under the warf/weft as they seem to have tried over 2 and over 1 one way 2 the other. I might try a bit of over 1 on that corner myself.

You may have gathered I struggle to make decisions It is so much easier when there is no choice.

Jo

[Steam.Jo]

To aid my decision as to which fabric I trotted down to look at my collection of picture frames: These are donated to me by a friend who clears out any unsold pictures from the local charity shops and takes them to the council recycling centre for disposal ... or rather he brings them round to me so I can use them to cut up and practise making smaller frames out of them.

The biggest frame I have has a visible area of 34" by 27 1/4". This is too small for the 18ct finished piece but would fit the 20ct with about 1/2" gap all round. It is only when you lay out the measurements or look at an appropriate frame for a piece that you can truly visualise its size and this piece is HUGE

Jo

[rcperryls]

I had real problems with the first HAED I worked on ( Lord of the Rings: The Burden) because I started with their recommended 25 ct evenweave 2 over 1. That worked for the first 6 1/2 pages of the chart, then I got to areas with lots and lots of confetti and it got to where I could hardly get the needle through the fabric. I tried parking threads and that was just too complicated for me to do. I ended up restarting the piece and decided to tent stitch 2 over 1 and got about another 6 pages done but was so worn out by so many pages of black that I put it on hold where it has been for the last 10+ years. Most of my HAEDs (which have sadly stayed in various levels of far from complete) were/are on 25 or 28 ct , 1 over 1.

The reason I explained all that is when you mentioned that someone had done some practice stitching on one of the fabrics, it reminded me that one of the suggestions I received at the time was to stitch several squares of confetti stitches to see how easy or hard it is to stitch. It shouldn't be a problem 2 over 1 on an 18 or 20 ct evenweave, but anything above 20 ct might be difficult. I wasn't going to post this because you are such an experienced and skilled stitcher and may know this already since you have stitched other very detailed and complicated designs, but then thought I would rather apologize if you feel at all insulted, rather than let you go through what I did then. No one should have to.

I am so excited to watch this piece develop. It is so beautiful.

Carole

[Steam.Jo]

Thank you Carole for your wise words of warning

I've tried stitching with 2 threads over one:



Its a bit tight. Looking on the back:



Tying off is going to be challenging even on this fabric. But I think it will work. I might have to use Chenille needles if things get tight but I plan to use JJ tapestry size 28


So decision made: I have decided to use what claims to be 20 count but as we will see it is not an accurate 20 count... Having trimmed the piece of 20 count square (why can't people cut fabric true? ) I now have a piece 38" wide rather than the original 40. It is huge (I may have mentioned this ) So time to try gridding:



What a mess I tried using a ruler to mark where the lines should go to find that no 10 stitches does not equate to 1/2" as the fabric count is under size, its actually around 21 count rather than 20 Having learnt how to grid a little neater I got to the other side:



I now know there will be a 1" gap all round on the frame I found rather than the 1/2" I started gridding for. This means I can either add 20 rows of a contrasting boarder colour or extend the picture out by that much So an extra two blocks are needed all round

Jo

[Steam.Jo]

Wow it took until 9pm to finish the gridding it was so exciting.

I also made up some thread holders and



Some symbol strips to go in the needle holders (when they turn up from China).

Good news I still have to wait for the roller frame to turn up from Very Crafty so I have time to finish at least one of my current pieces before I could start.

I will have to decide if I document this picture as part of this thread or do it in its own thread

Jo

[Serinde]

WHAT a lot of prep! But all in a good cause.

Traditionally, HAEDs go in their own thread. (Golly! We've been around long enough to have traditions!)

[Mabel Figworthy]

Good prep is essential to make the actual stitching more enjoyable, so well worth it. But yes, it can drag can't it...

[Nicola Main]

No point in starting a stitchy job if you're not happy with everything before you start! This is going to look amazing Jo I can't wait to see progress pics!

[Steam.Jo]

Hi Nicola, how is your stitching going? We have been missing your updates.


It has been raining the last couple of days causing the flowers to grow and they have attracted a bee:



One more flower on the bottom left and then I turn the corner upward towards some more butterflies

Jo

[Mabel Figworthy]

I love bumblebees! Great to see this grow so well