Making Tough Decisions when it Comes to Cross Stitch
Posted by Tracey Kramer on 27th Jun 2017
The First of Many Mistakes
I had a long drawn-out
cross stitch project on my frame (I am ashamed to say) for
about 8 to 10 years and neglected to finish it. It was a
lovely picture of a ruined castle sitting off in the
distance. There were many reasons why I did not finish
it, but to name a few, I made the mistake of purchasing a
large blended color pattern. The fact that the project
was large should have been enough, but when you add in the
blended color factor, you have just doubled or tripled your
time spent working on that project. I learned this the
hard way. Also, in the midst of working on this project
at a steady pace which dwindled down to once or twice a month
and then dwindled down to zilch and it took on the role of
dust magnet, I noticed since I had been confining my stitching
to only stitching within each 10 x 10 grid square which left
the pattern with an awful “checkerboard effect.”
Most of the sky was light in color and those were the areas
where you could definitely see the “dreaded checkerboard
effect” taking shape.
A Tough Decision
Faced with these
mounting problems on my project, I came up with painful
decision to scrap the project and start a fresh new large
project (a portrait of a mother and child) which would be
uncharted territory for me because I had never stitched people
before.
A New Outlook
My plan was to immerse
myself into this project. Since I did not have to deal
with blended colors as it was a solid color pattern, I felt I
could really pick up the pace this time with my
stitching. My plan was that maybe after I finish this
pattern, I will start all over on a blank canvas and stitch
the ruined castle pattern WITHOUT blended colors using solid
colors only. I also am now familiar with how to avoid
the checkerboard effect by stitching randomly and just going
where the symbol takes me in the chart, and when finished, I
will compare the newly stitched piece with the old blended
color piece. Hopefully there will be a mark of
improvement! Sometimes you have to make tough decisions
if you run into a stalemate situation where you are not going
anywhere on your project. Switching to a brand new
project helped to jump-start my zest for stitching, and now I
am more than ever determined to finish my project(s)!