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I discovered America for myself yesterday.
My latest WIP (Eva Rosenstand, Hunting in 1950s) contains hectars of half stitches as shadows. I know that when I was stitching Charivna Myt's Hunting for Ducks, there was an instruction: stitch in paralel with the upper leg of the cross. I tried that method on the current WIP and it looked not right. I then decided that Google knows better. And it did share an interesting know how with me: if you need a water colour effect, stitch half stitches around objects in parallel to the upper leg of your cross stitch, if you are stitching shadows, the half stitch should go in parallel with the lower leg. Thought to myself that this may be of some use for stitchers, especially beginners.

That's very interesting! I've always stitched my half stitches in parallel to the lower stitch.

Some while back I stitched an aeroplane for my G'son. There was a panel at the side of the design which was stitched in half stitches.
One row was in parallel to the lower stitch and the next row in parallel to the upper.
So the 1-3-5-7-9 etc rows were to the lower direction and the 2-4-6-8-10 etc rows in the upper direction.
It gave an interesting zig-zag appearance and filled the empty space next to the 'plane.

That's really interesting and a useful thing to know.

Wish a judge at a local show had realised it, however. A piece of mine was disqualified because the judge decided that I had crossed my stitches wrongly in one section (ie the opposite way they were done everywhere else). It was single half stitches...

Did she not try to make you walk always from your left(or right) leg? She may be a judge, but does not sound too experienced in stitching to me.

That is a very interesting tip. I have almost always stitched my half stitches in parallel to the lower stitch also unless a chart specified something different. The HAED charts have no half stitches, but when winter comes and I get back to stitching the Star Wars afghan there are quite a few, I think.
Will keep this in mind. Thank you.

Always learning something new from forum members!!

Carole

How interesting - my instinct has always been to make them go in the direction of the top half of the full crosses, unless the other way better produced the effect I wanted. And what you write about the opposite direction working better for shadows makes sense!

That’s very interesting.

I always did my 1/2 stitches to match the bottom stitch, but when I received the kit from Squirrel she did it the opposite, so I switched for consistency. I think it looks so much better her way, so that’s how I do it now….matching top stitch. I never considered it may be dependent on what effect is wanted.