Desperately need "Blending" help!

[Gelibean]

Hi,

Newbie here!! I'm really hoping someone with more experience than me can help me with this.

I have been cross-stitching for several years. I undertook one of my biggest projects this year. It's 250x220 stitches wide and the pattern was over 24 pages!! Since the pattern was so complicated I decided to do one page at a time and mark it off diligently on my pattern so I knew exactly where I was - first four pages no problem at all. What I should have said is that this is a side portrait of an English Bull Terrier who is predominately grey, white and black with a huge spike collar on a black background.

I think you can see where I'm going with this now!! So I'm now starting to join up my pages to the right and noticed that my black background looks like it has a dark join down it and my work looks like panels - is there any way of "blending" (I'm not even sure that's the right term) without unpicking the black bits and starting again (nearly 3000 stitches!!)?????

I would seriously appreciately any help you can give.

x

[dwitt]

A lot of people that do HEADs work page by page. I am pretty sure once you are done and wash the project the stitches will look more uniform.

[MaggieM1750]

My tip is to continue your thread into the next block, or if its just an endless line, stagger your stopping point so not all stitches start and end in the same spot. Its sort of a pain.. because you're working between 2 pages, flipping back and forth.

There was also a trick someone posted on here a while back, maybe 6-8 months ago where someone noticed lines even after washing and pressing. The fix had to do something with stitching through the back, so it sort of puffed up stitches from the back side, while pulling the X's together so the gap was less noticable. I'll try and find the old post.

Edit: Found it! http://crossstitchforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12163" target="_blank
Its more about creasing.. but might help you as well.

[rcperryls]

I try to do what Maggie suggested and if a thread goes over to the next page or down to the page below, I will stitch it until I have either reached the end of that color or reached the end of the thread or reached the end of my gridding. I usually only grid two extra columns to the right and two extra rows beneath the current page. It means having 3 pages available but I don't find that to be a problem. This works if you are a cross country stitcher. I don't know what those who park do. Hope this makes sense.

Carole

[Mystonique]

Scarlett Quince had a tip dedicated to this on their website.

I tend to stitch in blocks of colour or items so I don't have this issue so much and aren't sure what the best solution is.

[purvislets]

I'm doing a project that's only four pages, but I understand what you mean. Having that "blocky" look when finished has always worried me. When I am stitching a color and get to the end of the page, I'll continue to the next page until that color is finished or until that particular thread runs out. I try to never finish the threads on the same line, but instead stagger them a bit.

Kind of like when you are joining two pieces of patterned wall paper. If you just join them with a straight line, you are more likely to see where they meet. But if you cut zig zags into the top piece and lay it over the bottom one (while matching up the pattern) the seam practically disappears.

I hope that made some kind of sense. I wouldn't worry about unpicking what you've already done, but if you want to avoid it then I'd start staggering your stops from this point on.

ETA: Here is a picture of my current WIP to give you a visual of what I mean. I marked the end of the page with the red fishing line. I tried to either continue whichever color I was using through to the next page or end it just before the end of the first page so that the edges would be staggered and eliminate the solid line look between the pages.