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Can Any one please tell me how to keep from getting row marks when working on a heaven and earth design? I have been using one color over the whole page at a time. I carry the color over into next page. I am putting so much work into this project and I don't want row marks. Thanks for the help!

Hello Julia and welcome to the forum from South Carolina! I stitch a lot of HAED charts and we have forum members who stitch other designs that are also pretty big, like Mystic Stitch and Golden Kite, for eg. I don't have trouble with row lines. I usually stitch in sections, focusing on one page at a time, though I don't usually just stitch all of one color, and then another etc. I do continue a thread to the next page for a few stitches if there aren't a lot of stitches or until I run out of the thread in my needle. I do the same thing at the bottom of a page, again depending on the number of stitches and how much thread is still in my needle.

I have not seen many finished designs that have row lines whether the stitcher parks, cross country stitches or stitches one color at a time. Also, what appears as rows in your stitching may disappear after you finish your piece and wash it gently.

Hope you will post a picture of your work so we can watch your progress and perhaps see what it is that you are concerned about.

Carole

I think it's thread tension that causes row/ column marks. Lower tension = less chance.
Furthermore, if you can stagger the breaks at the edges of the area you are doing it won't be a straight line.

I think, too, if the thread is quite plump relative to the surface you are less likely to see it.

I had the problem on one 14ct project, and once I reduced my thread tension it got a bit better. I think had I used 3 threads on 14ct it may not have been so obvious.

Regards,

Richard

I think the problem rears its ugly head anytime you stop at the end of an artificial break such as the 10x10 sq or page line because we subconsciously change our tension. It sounds like the way you are carrying the color across these artificial breaks that you shouldn't have any trouble.

You can stitch diagonally to help avoid lines. It's just the same as stitching in columns but you mark the charts in diagonals. I particularly like diagonal stitching over multiple pages at once, so you get a slice of the picture and therefor more variety. This picture is just a small area when I first started practising, to give you an idea.



I don't know why the images aren't showing, the urls are
http://www.morecambesands.com/photos/cr ... gonal.html" target="_blank
and
http://www.morecambesands.com/photos/cr ... hllap.html" target="_blank

What a good idea, Franacropan!