You might try gridding it, Connie. It will make it easier. You can buy pre-gridded aida. It's nice!

Cory, I notice that some of the background on Connie's piece is exposed. If the piece doesn't need to be washed, is there a way to get rid of the exposed grid lines? Can you, say, dampen it and wipe with a clean cloth to remove them? I'd love to know for myself, too. Feel free to say "go look it up, ginna". I'm just lazy today. Ok. Every day.

ginna, I agree,why look it up when we can pick somebody else's brain. I do it every day with my daughter. She loves researching! LOL

I don't think that Cory needs to grid. I've done some fairly complex projects and have never gridded. Making a copy of the patterns and highlighting what's been stitched works for me. I finish small areas as opposed to stitching one color throughout. All it takes is to be off by one stitch and all the work was for naught. But if gridding makes her feel more comfortable, then by all means.

I have one success story to report. I finished a tree stitched entirely with Gentle Arts overdyed floss on putty colored linen and then I washed it! No bleeding. I immediately rolled it into a towel and ironed it. It looks so nice. I am tempted to wash the others but don't want to push my luck. The other projects are done with many colors and the floss it Colorworks. I don't know how it would do. Gentle Arts says that it is colorfast.

Yes, the pre-gridded lines wash out. I wash my cross stitch projects with Ivory dish soap and then iron them dry. I have had good luck with this.

Connie, to tackle all those different greens, try using a quilt marker with the pre-gridded aida. Put a little dot on the aida squares that are all the same green. After stitching all the same green, advance to the next green. The quilt marker will wash out too.

Good luck! This is a nice project that will be lovely!

"Tex", I never grid, and never have even tried. I don't have a problem as I generally do things as you do--small sections at a time. I do, however, LOVE the air-erasable fabric pens. When I'm really tired and even my eyes have cross stitches (remember the old cartoons?), I use the air-erasable pens just to mark tens. It's only good for about two days, and then it's gone, but as I use it fairly infrequently, and only for small sections, so it's great. Now that I think about it, I may just use it all the time. DUH!

ginna, I am getting one of those pens. I need Antique White Lugana and have been checking here on ECS what seems like forever. They are out of stock. I'll wait another couple of weeks and will have to find a different source if they don't get it in. That's when I'll try that pen. All I need to "grid" with it are a few key areas. Much simpler that the conventional way. Great idea. Thanks.

Dritz, on Amazon, $4.37 per pen. I just finished using it on an aida 14 piece of white, and in two days it just disappeared. The marks are lavender-ish but it doesn't matter the color on which you use it. Kind of cool, actually.

Great, thanks for the info, ginna. I have to place an Amazon order so I'll include the pen. Some things are good to have on hand. I vaguely remember having some sort of pen many years ago. I used it at my feeble attempts at sewing. I cannot remember if it faded - probably not.