Gridding of Fabric

[Jen2000]

I am thinking of restarting my Milady Blackberry HAED. If I do, or even for future projects, I would like to start griding off fabric beforehand. My question is, how do you grid off fabric?

What do you find is the fastest and easiest way of doing so?

[stitchingmae]

I gridded my first pattern just reccently. I started with a very small pattern my easter egg swap LOL.

What I did was....I did the whole fold in hal and fold in half again as if i was starting in the middle. Then I sort of drew a big X over where the center stitch would be on the fabric. Then I found the center of the pattern. (mine happened to NOT be on one of the ten by ten lines) so I counted up from the Center of the pattern to the first 10 by ten line (I think mine ended up being like 4 stitches away) I then counted the same number of stitches up from the center on the fabric (the x marked earlier) and drew my first line there. and then counted ten up all the way up...and then later did the same for the left to right...counted how many away from the center...did same on fabric and so on.

Does that make any sense? To me it was easier and that way I knew my center would be centered.

I know a bunch of people on here do a thing where they cut enough fabric to have a 3 inch border on all sides...and they just count three inches down by three inches in...and go from there..but that would make me nervous LOL.

[freelady]

There are two main ways to grid, using a water soluble pen or sewing.

You can buy the pens which look like a felt tip and do as maemae did - start from the centre lines and draw your lines every 10 squares horizontally and vertically.

The second is to stitch along the same lines. I like fine fishing line as it's easy to pull out when I'm done. I do five stitches above and five below the fabric - that helps me keep the count right. It's a pain in the backside to do, but on bigger projects it really does make it easier to count where you are.

Hope this helps.

[stitchingmae]

forgot to say use a water soluble pen!! Tha'ts a biggie

[Wandatoo]

Someone else here suggested using fine fishing line instead of thread, so I've gridded a large project for the first time.

I like the fishing line because you can't stitch through it, making it easier to remove. It's plastic and comes in several colours.

[Pengwenn]

I would highly suggest griding. I know it's not for everyone but I've made less errors and a lot less since I started to grid my pieces.

[carolynbb]

I love my water-soluable gridding pen. I got it at Joann Fabrics over in the embroidery floss/hoops section.

I only recently began gridding and the pen is so easy and it really does wash 100% out.

When I grid, I lay the fabric out and start at the upper left. I make little hash marks every 10 holes until I've gone the width of the pattern. Then I do the same thing vertically for the height. I use a ruler to connect the hash marks and make a checkerboard of 10x10 squares. Then I label the lines as 10, 20, 30, 40, etc both horizontally and vertically (I label my pattern the same way if it's not already done).

It winds up looking like this:



The narrow columns on the far right and far bottom are because the pattern isn't exactly a multiple of 10.

[Jen2000]

Thank for your help so far everyone! I really appreciate it!

I love my water-soluable gridding pen. I got it at Joann Fabrics over in the embroidery floss/hoops section.

I only recently began gridding and the pen is so easy and it really does wash 100% out.

When I grid, I lay the fabric out and start at the upper left. I make little hash marks every 10 holes until I've gone the width of the pattern. Then I do the same thing vertically for the height. I use a ruler to connect the hash marks and make a checkerboard of 10x10 squares. Then I label the lines as 10, 20, 30, 40, etc both horizontally and vertically (I label my pattern the same way if it's not already done).

It winds up looking like this:

(image)

The narrow columns on the far right and far bottom are because the pattern isn't exactly a multiple of 10.

Wow! I can see why griding is so helpful to those of you that use it! That would take nearly 100% of the stress out of counting throughout the whole project!

Okay, so I can see that the pen helps a lot, but how does sewing in the grid work? And, once the piece is completed, does the grid really come out easily without ruining the completed stitches?

[coffee_freak]

i look at the dimensions of the design and add three inches top, bottom and both sides..i start at the top left corner and find my 3 inch down, 3 inch in mark and start gridding with a blue water soluble pen as per the chart...

[CheyennePony]

I use the 3inch border method, then I can start gridding easily from the top lefthand corner. I use a Sewline Fabric Pencil - they wash out easily and give a nice fine line without any bleeding.

[skitzzzzz]

i to prefer the sewline pencil no bleeding and you get rubber to rub out to lol just like an ordinary pencil i give mine 10/10

[clockwork]

I've heard scary horrible things about washable pen coming back to the surface long after the stitching is done. I've never dared try it because I can't think of many things worse than looking at something that's been on my wall for years and seeing lines on it. And even if they weren't there, I might imagine them. I think I'll try the fishing line thing sometime. I don't like the idea of stitching in blocks (I KNOW that leaves lines, I've seen them) but the counting would be easier. Maybe TOO easy. Hmmm... I better think about that.

[Angel]

I grid with a water soluble pencil in a bright and contrasting colour to the fabric and draw the lines in 10x10 square grids.

[stitchingmae]

I now do as angel does. but then i still count LOL i don't really do the squares. I just us them as a sort of short cut to counting LOL.