You must have done a great job. Sometimes I think that could be a real money maker. I think I would pay to have someone do that for me!

sydgreg,

Just my opinion, First, and pardon me that I don't remember, does your chart have a lot of pages to it?
If it does, I would start in the UPPER LEFT CORNER, AFTER YOU MEASURE the 3 inches from the Left side and 3 inches down from the TOP to make sure you have your 3 inches for framing. If your grid measures correctly,THEN I would start stitching from Left to Right ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE VERY TOP LINE OF YOUR PATTERN. That way you can check to see if your grid lines on the fabric are matching up with the grid lines on the pattern and you can make any grid or stitch corrections then without having to pull out a lot of stitching if there is a mistake.
I'll be the first to tell you that I don't grid; but I respect the different "roads" cross stitchers take to get to the same destination which is to have a beautiful completed project that they enjoyed stitching.

Sydney, next time make an axis of a center and vertical row and work your rows up and out from there. You will see almost immediately if you are "off-line" and you can almost quit counting. My first was 30 x 24 and only took a couple of days. Subsequent projects went much quicker. :)

I recommend gridding when the project is large, or just complicated enough to force "frogging".....I HATE frogging...rip-it! :) You said it, Su Pitt!

Some people wash, serge, or zig-zag; I fray-Check and grid. :) Whatever plucks your eyebrows, right?

Stitch and smile, stitch and smile! :)

Sydney more power to you. Like someone else said I don't grid. I tried it once and felt it was such a waste of time. Everyone has their own thing though. If it works for you I am glad. That is what is so nice about cross stitching. Everyone makes their own way of doing things. Make sure you have 3 inches of extra fabric on a side before you start. On my very large projects where I have 15 to 20 pages I do like Bermuda said. Start 3 inches in from the top and side. Don't get frustrated if you make a mistake we all do it even today. Enjoy your project.

I think that gridding takes up a lot of time also. However, no that I am used to having it I would never, ever do without. Yes, I get off track sometimes. I take pieces with me to work on while waiting for doctors or going to meetings. It is funny when people ask me what I am working on and I tell them I haven't decided yet.

sygel
just read you note saying you do "15 / 20" page projects..
I feel like I am drowning & have pretty much decided to give up this project; Naivety Painting.. 75 colors, & some I can hardly see shade difference.. start upper left (for the 1st time ever)
got a section (about 40 x 25 stitches) done & lost place completely. counted down & over (different color) but have the same problem.. shades of colors are to similar..

have decided to write this one off to experience..

Sorry, dbye. Do you think gridding would have helped? With the red fishing line, you can start the grid at any point in your project, because it is so slick it won't hurt anything. Just a thought....but best of luck and good fortune on your next endeavor!

Dbye I agree with Vcess completely here. I find I run into this problem too with distinguishing the like shades when you are working with so many similar shades next to one another. I often fear putting the project down because I'm afraid when I pick it up I will make a big mistake trying to get back into it and I obviously have to put it down at some point or I'll be stitching the next 20 years with no break in the action. Definitely consider just gridding a small section (to avoid the time investment to grid the whole thing) around where you are in the design to see if it helps first before giving up----you may be surprised. If this works for you, it will give you more confidence for future projects like this one with many colors that are large in size. Best of luck to you.

dbye -- I am sorry that you had such a bad experience. You have invested a lot of time, not to mention expense, in this project.

That top left corner has a lot of dark colors. Maybe you could experiment a little. Try starting in the middle and work your way either up or down. There are better color variations and lighter shades than in the top corner where it is all dark shades of floss.


You could try making a grid or just keep on working on one 10 stitch by 10 stitch section to see how it works. You don't have to frog the upper stitches of cut the piece away until you are finished with this experiment

I admire you for attempting this beautiful piece. Way beyond my level of patience and endurance.

dbye,
I would suggest you just "walk away" from doing the pattern for awhile and see how your feeling then.
It can be overwhelming at times on large projects that's why I have to walk away from cross stitching Sacred Hour (which I haven't touched for about 4 days now). So many dark colors at times...but I have started to focus on doing only ONE SYMBOL , therefore only ONE COLOR OF THREAD in the pattern rather than going back and forth with the different colors. For 3 days I did just one symbol which was
DMC 898. The following two days I cross stitched ONLY the symbol for DMC 3829. It can be overwhelming thinking about ALL the 25 pages for Sacred Hour, so I only look at pages 1-5 of the pattern. When working on this project, pages 1-5 are my whole world, so to speak.
IF and only IF you decide to try again. You are NOT alone from walking away from a pattern.