#Gridded aida cloth how to

Some have you count the spaces of your basting so that your needle comes in and out of the fabric at intervals of ten (over ten, under ten). Some tell you to put them in every ten stitches. I read a half a dozen or so different tutorials, all with different opinions on placement of gridlines, how many to put, and what materials to use, but with enough commonalities for me to start out. However, having recently become aware of it, and being about to start a very large project, I decided to give it a try. I just used the stitches IвЂ™d already completed as reference points, and marked off my chart as I stitched.

Mostly because I didnвЂ™t know it was something that people did. I have been cross stitching since the age of six, but have never basted gridlines into my fabric. Serenity Stitchworks вЂ“ Preparing your ProjectВ with Grid LinesД« вЂ“ Preparing Fabric for Cross Stitch Saves Time and Aggravation

#Gridded aida cloth how to

If you want a more in-depth view of how to grid for cross stitch, I used instructions from the following sites: Stay tuned to find out what I think of gridding once I start stitching on it - is it worth it?

ItвЂ™s easy to get dis-oriented when constantly turning the fabric to run gridlines in different directions, and having a clear indication of which way is up can keep you from making mistakes. (I still wonвЂ™t remove the center marker thread). Do not remove these markers until you have started cross stitching and can remember which end is up. Mark the center and the top of your fabric with thread or pins before you begin gridding.I then made a sign at the top showing what color the horizontal threads are and what color the vertical threads are, for quick reference. On my chart, I marked the different colors of gridding thread with different colors of hilighter (and chose my thread colors to roughly correspond with my hilighter colors).Mark your page breaks with a different, bolder color of thread than the rest of your grid.Since I only have 4-5 lines per page in a given direction, I think this will be sufficient for verifying my position. With this method, there is only one page with vertical lines in color a and horizontal lines in color b. Instead, I used one color for vertical threads and one color for horizontal threads on each page, not repeating any color in a given direction. Many instructions I read recommended using a different thread order on each page as a sort of failsafe to be sure youвЂ™re on the right page.

And why put all this time into laying a grid if youвЂ™re not going to make darnВ sure itвЂ™s accurate? It will take longer, but itвЂ™s better than getting off by one thread and then basing all of the subsequent ones off of the incorrect one. Take the time to double and triple-check the number of stitches between your gridlines as you lay them. You can see the thread marking the center of the fabric, the rust-colored threads marking page breaks, and the different thread color-combinations for each page.