I would not recommend making this larger since it is a Dimensions kit and will come with 18 count fabric and thread which is often in short supply as it is to finish the design even on the correct count fabric. If you are determined and want to change the fabric and then match all the kit thread to DMC, you would likely have less issues than just increasing the size of your fabric and exhausting your kit thread before you're able to finish the design. Good luck in what you decide.

ibcatlovr - How's the Major Undertaking going? I've been out of touch for a while...Valerie

Beautiful motif. Love Paris but not enough to do this monumental project! LOL

Hi Valerie-- I wondered where you have been. I hope all is well with you and glad to hear from you. I will be honest and say my progress on really large, monumental projects like the Major Undertaking which is Decorated for Fall by Mystic 27"x22" and fully stitched is a slow and steady wins the race approach. I tend to work on many, many (I won't say how many) projects at a time and sometimes depart from stitching for a few months for my other love, reading books. I am trying to complete a personal reading challenge right now, so I have departed from stitching briefly. I do make progress though at a slow rate on my stitching around these departures. How about you. Are you a large project stitcher? What stitching projects are you working on.

Texas Stitcher-- this is a really nice piece. I have this one in my stash and will likely take my own advice when I stitch this and switch to a larger fabric count and use DMC thread so I can see it and not run out of thread!!!

ibcatlovr001 - hello! I understand your feeling about wanting to both read and stitch. Wish I could figure out a way to do both at once! What are you challenging yourself to read? I went through the Bible, which I've never done, and the Old Testament scared me half to death, so I did some stitching to smooth my feathers. Goodness, what a read! You asked if I'm a large-project-stitcher...the biggest thing I've done is the adorable "Noah's Ark" from Eva Rosenstand. I made it many years ago. Though the finished piece is large, it isn't completely covered in stitching, so it isn't near the challenge of the one you're doing. But I've done some lovely fully-covered floral arrangements, and quite a few samplers. I've ordered a few from ECS and will start one of those soon; I think the cross, for Easter. (Not that it will be done by then!) And I wanted to ask you also; every single time I've used the fabric and floss that come in a kit, I've had fits. The fabric is never large enough, and sometimes it's poor quality or the wrong kind of fabric for the stitches; and there's never enough floss, even if I'm careful. Do you find that also? Or am I just being too fussy? I never use a kit anymore, for those reasons. What's your experience been?

Valerie, I am with you on this thing of making kits. Many years ago when I first started cross stitching, someone gave me a Dimensions Kit. I was very careful and yes....I did run out of thread. It took ten days for them to get the thread to me. It was a pitiful, small amount of thread. I mean, we are not talking about gold nuggets here....we're talking about thread!! Later, someone gave me another kit also from the same folks. I changed out the fabric, bought the DMC tri-fold complete color listing of their threads, substituted the DMC threads and everything came out fine. I am sure we can't be the only ones frustrated by that experience!!

I use a size 14 for ALL my pix..... in counted crosstitch... until I found this site I did by guess and by gosh now I can use the fabric sizer and calculator.... thanks for being here iii
finding this site is great... ggma kitty

I use a size 14 for ALL my pix..... in counted crosstitch... until I found this site I did by guess and by gosh now I can use the fabric sizer and calculator.... thanks for being here iii
finding this site is great... ggma kitty

Hi Valerie:

I must say you picked a most ambitious read with the bible. Mine is ambitious but not at that complexity. Each year at goodreads.com, I do their annual book challenge. On the goodreads site there is a listopia tab and there are many book lists to pick from, so one of the lists I like to select my reading from is the favorites from the 1001 books to read in a lifetime list. I pick 6 classics from this list, then I pick 6 more whatever I want either from this list or a few other lists they have there that I have saved in my favorites on my computer to complete by the end of the year. When I read the classics as I am doing right now, I feel I need to concentrate more on the writing style and if I stitch too and put the book down too long, I start to forget the story line. I usually read my 6 classics back to back, so I am nearly finished. If you really want to read while you stitch, I know some stitchers listen to the audio books while they stitch.

As for the kits and the quality, I absolutely agree with you. I posted here just a month or 2 ago to someone that what I normally do is when I work on a kit, I buy my own better quality fabric and swap it for the lesser quality kit fabric. I then mark the kit fabric that it came from a kit and use it only for Christmas ornaments or freebies off the web. This works out to be a win, win situation since the larger, nicer project is stitched on better quality fabric that I cut to the right size with a 3"+ border since the kits only give you a 2" or less border around the design, and I do not end up wasting and tossing out the lesser quality fabric and use it for less important projects. The only time this may not work is if the kit fabric is an odd hard to find color. Unfortunately, if you like the design from the kit, 95% of the time you cannot just purchase the chart.

Valerie, I sometimes I double a pattern. I will make a copy of the pattern and then highlight area when a complete stitch has been done. Looking at the picture of the project just make sure you have enough material to complete it.

Since the kit is on 18 ct you might try 22 ct or larger and double your stitching.