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This is what it should look like when its done
:
with a thank you to tiffstitch since she is the one who told me bout this design
and here are my threads ready and willing:

with a thank you to Agi because some of the threads she sent me for my Bingo prize were what I needed for this so I didn't have to buy as many colors at Michaels this afternoon

I am going to do 2 over 1 on 25 ct. evenweave. (My first at evenweave too) 1 over 1 didn't seem to cover the fabric well. I have been trying to grid and don't understand how those of you who do manage to actually end up with 10 x 10 squares. I have tried using a cross stitch ruler, free hand, with and without a magnifying glass and can't do it. Good thing the ink really is water soluable.
Suggestions? Hints? I would appreciate it.

Thank you,
Carole

Cant wait to see the progress on this 1.

Sorry cant help with the gridding though, but good luck.

Oohhh do NOT let my hubby see this pattern or he'll be wanting it! He's a huge LOTR fan!

As far as the gridding goes, I used a cross stitch ruler and put a dot on every 10th stitch. Sometimes the holes didn't match up just perfectly with the ruler, so there was a lot of double checking. once I had the dots going along the bottom, top, and along both sides, then I just used a regular ruler and connected them. I did make a few mistakes but, like you said, it's a good think the ink is water soluble! ETA: I gridded on Aida, so I don't know if there is a trick to evenweave or not.

It can seem like a lot of extra work but I have found it to be a lifesaver!

Oh, this is going to be so cool! I'm not a huge LOTD fangirl, but I did enjoy the movies.

When I gridded, I just started in the middle-ish and counted ten stitches in going to the right, then the left, then up and down. I made little tick marks each time I hit ten, then just extended them to full lines. It took forever, but the results were nice enough. (In the future, though, I will look for a finer-tipped pen. My lines are broader than I had wanted.) This is only the first time I've gridded, though, so I'm hardly an expert.

Big LotR fan here and I'll love following this one!

What a fantastic design. I cant wait to see it stitched up!!

Can't wait to see this one progress Carole - its going to look amazing!!

As for gridding - I've just gridded up a QS, but plan on gridding for all my HAEDs. I used metallic thread (just because I am a bad girl and never wash my completed cross stitches, so I'll just pull the thread out when complete!) and I did grid 10x10 squares - some stitchers will only grid the vertical or horizontal lines but I am too much of a control freak and thought that I might as well do it all! I don't know how this will work for a full size chart (some people doing larger designs only grid page by page as otherwise it might take a while to do!) but this is what I did:

I found the middle of the design to match to the middle of my fabric, then counted how many stitches away the nearest vertical gridline was then stitched this in for the length of my design (which in my case was 200 stitches (yours would be more than double that at 439!) then as I completed each vertical line I ticked it off on the chart so I knew how many I had left. I know you'll be drawing your lines in but just in case anyone cares I started my vertical lines by going up at 0 (if you think of yourself counting the holes...) then down at 9 and then up at 1 for the next block then down at 9 and up at 1 and so on. I did this as it secures the metallic thread. Once all the verticals were down the horizontals were easy as I didn't have to count so much and I completed them in the same way. I also used a different metallic thread to grid the page lines in - just as a practice for my bigger designs really as this one is only 4 full and 2 partial pages!

The other way of doing it is to measure your border from the edge of the fabric (perhaps the usual 3 inch frame allowance) then start your gridding for page one there - that would be the better option for a large project, then you wouldn't have to thumb through 20 pages of chart searching for the middle!

Sorry if this has confused you further - some things are more difficult to explain then they are to show!!

What a great design! I had the same problem gridding so i bought dmc magic guide, it's pre gridded 25 ct evenweave and it washes out. I can't imagine using anything else now

X Carol

So I use Aida, but I find my middle of fabric and pattern and I find the nearsest vertical line then i count ten make a small mark. Count ten make a small mark...count ten...etc etc.
then I do the same for the horizontals. takes a while but its worth it I use the water soluble pen as well!!

Ooooh! That is a wonderful design. LOTR is my all time favourite book, and I loved the films too. I'm really looking forward to seeing this one progress

Really cool design, can't wait to see some progress on this one. I personally don't grid, for one, I'm too impatient to start stitching ,I like to count my stitches instead, also I mark off what I have stitched on a working copy so I know where I should be up to.

Thank you everyone for your gridding suggestions. I have decided to try it without for now, and look for "magic" pre gridded if I have to restart this thing. I bought a hanging over my neck magnifier which helps with the counting and I have marked some of the counts at the top of the fabric. (You'll see when I do my first update). Right now it is ALL BLACK just about on page one . Easy to do cause no counting, but hard on my eyes.

Carol - where did you find pregridded 25 ct evenweave? If not for this design, I would definitely want it for the nextl. I saw 16 and 18 ct aida's advertised on the dmc site and "googled: for 25 ct but can't find anything. Please let me know.
and maybe I need a thinner pen.

Carole

rcperryls wrote:where did you find pregridded 25 ct evenweave?

Not quite sure where you would buy it in the US - but you can get it at http://www.cross-stitch-heaven.co.uk" target="_blank and on ebay in the UK.

I bought the pre gridded evenweave and aida for my haed designs as I couldn't manage the gridding myself as it's too big a job would take me forever, hope you manage to get some

No way!!!! This is going to be so cool!!!!!!
Faith

I gridded for the first time on my current project which is on 25 count evenweave. I have a fine soluble marker and did it free hand in the end. Initially I started using a ruler but as it's not perfectly straight I found my line straying so I ended up just colouring in the line free hand. I drew the first line and counted10 holes from there. So the first stitch is one hole to the right of the line and the 10th stitch covers the line iyswim? I couldn't have done this project without it as it has so many confetti stitches and the stitches so small I think id struggle to count it without the grid.

I also numbered the squares along the top and down the side on both the fabric and chart so square 3across 5 down was easy to find (too much time spent on Excel!)

I've done mine 1over1, I think I might have found 2 a bit of a squeeze. Coverage seems ok 1over1.

numbering the squares at top and bottom, especially top sounds like a good idea. I was going to do 1 over 1, but there is so much black it just didn't cover. 2 is a squeeze, but the magnifier helps. the / is easy, its going back over it with \ that gets hard to see with the black. I am marking each row on the pattern when its completed so that I can more easily keep track of the rows done. I think I might need a bit finer marker too, but I have done the first 2 rows and not gone totally bonkers yet.

I really appreciate the comments and help. This is going to be the hardest cs I have done I think and the encouragement is really helpful. Thank you.

Carole

I love the colors.

Hi Carole,

I got it from cross stitch heaven.co.uk, don't know about U.S. sorry

X Carol

It's so cool that you're starting this one! I can't help with gridding, I'm a newbie to it as well, but it sounds like you got a lot of good advice. I haven't come across the pre-gridded fabric either. I hope you get through the black quickly so you can move on. It's such a neat pattern. Good luck!