Yesterday was a little rough, so I put away Fall Fairy and pulled out a new start. I fully intended to finish a page before putting her away but it just didn't happen.
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| Last Update |
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| As of 08/09/2015 |
Last year I started The Fairy Spell on 28 count with two strands over one and I only made it a couple hundred stitches before deciding that 2 x 1 was too dense at 28 count and I couldn't manage it.
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| 2x1 on 28 count - yuk! |
I restarted on 28 count using 1x1 and it came out much nicer, but then I discovered that the "evenweave" wasn't very even and would produced a stretched image at the end, so I scrapped that one too.
After that, I tried a couple different types of linen for various projects with mixed results. I really hated having to grid and attempting to work around the fishing line or metallic thread. I thought it made my stitches skewed and uneven. I also made an attempt at parking, various finishing techniques, and cross country. All in all, a learning experience.
The end of the story is that I finally found a fabric I like, it comes pregridded and the evenweave is actually even. I now use 25 count DMC magic guide for all my HAEDs and I love it. This does unfortunately mean that I scrapped four projects before I figured it out but they were not very far along and I am much happier with a restart than with struggling with fabric I don't like.
At the advice of a blogger that I asked about how she stitches her TW projects so quickly, I set up a poor man's version of the Pako Thread Organizer. A block of styrofoam and a copy of my thread list later, and I have a fully functional thread organizer with interchangeable thread lists.
Before I start stitching, I thread several needles in the colors I need and stick them into the organizer next to the correct symbol. It takes a couple minutes to set up but saves time flipping through my threads later and eliminates wishy-washy-ness about which color to stitch next.
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| The Fairy Spell |
I started in the lower left hand corner this time, so that little blob actually represents a page finish ;)
