To grid or not to grid ...

[Loopy]

what do you prefer?

I have never gridded before (my fabric that is).

And then I saw pictures here of people who have gridded their fabric and thought "what a great idea".

So I tried it. And I washed it our really quickly because I just couldn't get on with - I found it really confusing and not all that helpful

So - what do you prefer ??

[agi]

To grid, very definitely. Since I started, I have gridded even the small projects, I am lost without it, it makes counting so much easier for me.

[freelady]

IF I'd bothered to grid before I started my dragon, life would certainly be easier and the thing would most likely be done now. I couldn't be doing my unicorn if that weren't gridded.

On each of them there is a lot of confetti and the colours are very alike so I can't tell one from the other If I drop a thread on the floor I have to use a magnifier and hold it next to each bobbin to find out what matches! So gridding is definitely the way to go for me, at least with bigger projects. Counting 5 up and 3 over is easy for me....

[Lizzy]

Gridding for me on everything and its cut the frogging down by about 99%. I love it

[kell]

I love gridding! The very act of drawing on the grid with a fabric pen makes me feel that I am completely prepared for my project and gives me the best chance of getting it right with minimal frogging as I can spot a mistake very quickly (certainly within that block of 100 stitches at the most) and sort it out without having to frob most of a pattern. Frogging huge sections is something that has put me off completing a project in the past (I frogged most of a project 3 times before deciding to change the pattern for the 2nd side of the cushion I stitched for my Grom's Xmas gift - it was just so disheartening to have to unpick all that work that I ended up hating the original choice of pattern!).

[Lessa54]

I've never gridded regardless of size of project. The most I've done is tacked out the centre and on my ornaments I do a temporary grid with pins to get to the corner of the outermost border. But dutifully gridding 10 by 10 boxes across pages? Definitely not for me. Partly I'm impatient. Once I've sorted the thread for the project I want to be stitching, not gridding . Also (touch wood) I've never had a major frog problem that I feel gridding would have helped with I stitch outwards from a starting point, doing stitches next to the ones I've already placed and I don't do big jumps across the project where major counting and major risk of the darned would arrive. I tend to find stitching this way that with the colour changes in most of my projects I pick it up very quickly if I make a mistake.

What also puts me off gridding, apart from the time and all the counting is that if I gridded, I think I'd worry about getting my grid in the right place. It would be really horrible to rely on the grid and then find that the grid was one square out

[Sarah Gixxer]

I have never gridded and don't intend to start. I've not had any problems by not doing it and I just know that if I did grid, I would find myself worrying that I'd miscounted when I did the gridding Also I'm both too idle to make more work for myself and too impatient to get on with the stitching to take the time to do it. I've also seen a couple of posts from people who have done it and then had a lot of difficulty getting the lines to wash out.

[agi]

Lucky you who can cound all those big projects without much frogging!
But, just so you know, gridding with a pen takes just a few minutes, really, so it's not so much extra work. I count carefully, twice, and then I can just rely on it.

[mags]

I don't do enormous projects, my medium sized projects have all been gridded - for me it makes stitching much easier and pleasurable - without it I would find it too much like hard work.

[kazzi29]

i have never gridded just because im not sure how and would be worried thats i messed up with the gridding plus i have never found a pen thats thin enough to only mark 1 thread on 25 count?

[Jaki :)]

Hi I don't grid either but on large projects I do put tacking stitches horizontally & vertically 2 mark my centre, then stitch a quarter of pattern at a time so I don't get lost, so far so good no major unpicks x x

[helbel]

plus i have never found a pen thats thin enough to only mark 1 thread on 25 count?

Oh I'm glad someone mentioned that. I cut up my lugana last night to start my HAED and then started thinking about gridding. I'm doing a storykeep so it's small but I'm wondering if I should grid in cotton as I do normally or to get a pen, but honestly on 25 count working over 1 I really don't know that a pen would work.

[burgundyice]

I've tried it both with thread and a pen and just don't get along with it at all! The most I do now is mark the corners of the project with the pen, just to see how it'll fit on the the fabric, but like others have said I wouldn't trust either thread or pen to be exactly right for 10 x 10 squares!

Louise

[meerkat]

I don't grid my work with a pen,but I did on one occasion stay faithfully with the 10 x10 grid squares on the paper pattern, for my Janlynn Tiger, and I found it very useful, particularly as it had so many colour changes. It helped my stitching confidence and I didn't feel the need to pre grid or stay within the squares on my Dimensions Gold project. I wouldn't rule out using the gridding method in the future if I thought it would help.

[Nachstenliebe]

Gridding sounds easier, but I dunno, I've never had an interest too. I think they would distract me from staring at my project when I lovingly just want to stare at how pretty it's coming along..When I show off a project in progress hardly anyone looks at the pattern..just what's on the fabric and it feels like if a grid is there it wouldn't look as amazing..
Faith

[koko]

I have used the gridding method on a big project and love it but probably wouldn't take the time to do it on a smaller project. On the smaller projects I work like Lessa, start in the middle and stitch my way further out in the pattern. The gridding really does help on the larger project though, it's about 60,000 stitches, so I think I would just be lost without the grid.

i have never found a pen thats thin enough to only mark 1 thread on 25 count?

I got this fabric pen and used it to grid my 36 count linen and did not have any problems. The other pens I found were too thick to use on such a fine count fabric but since this one is a "fine line" pen it worked great!

[Serinde]

I've used another version of this fine-line pen, and it does the trick... just don't press too hard (*snap*).

[clockwork]

I've never really been into the idea of gridding. I highlight my charts so it's pretty unnecessary. If anything, I think it might take some of the fun out of it. I don't do practically any frogging with my starting from the middle and highlighting occasionally method so making the counting even easier might make it almost boring. I don't do the same sort of crazyhuge projects some of you do, but many are four pages or so, and this method works very well for me. Perhaps if I was stitching something that had 30 or 40 I'd be starting in the top left and gridding would be more attractive to me because I'm not really used to that.

TLDR
I've got the stuff to do gridding if I choose to but so far it's never really seemed worth it.

[carolynbb]

Another gridding lover here! Drawing the little grids makes me happy.

[Rose]

I have never grid my material because I don't want to take the time and I think that if I miss count on the aida gridding is not going to make any difference soI am a I don't grid stitcher but really it is up to each individual!!!!