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Hello all!

I finally feel (somewhat) ready to tackle my very first HAED! It's exciting, but daunting! Until now I've always worked on Aida, so not only am I beginning my first HAED, but I'm stitching on linen for the first time as well. The linen I'm using is 28 count and I'm stitching 1 over 1.

Here's the problem, the coverage is gorgeous but the stitches are so small that I'm having trouble stitching with my usual method. When I start a new thread, I start from the back and stitch down the tail in the back as I do the next few stitches. When I'm done with a thread, I flip it over to the back and run the needle under 4-5 stitches to tack down the ending tail. However, the 28 count is so small that I can't get slide my needle under the stitches on the back to secure the ending tail!

I've heard some of you talking about starting and ending from the front and I'm thinking that I may have to start doing that. I'm always just so preoccupied with how neat my back looks, and I'm worried that starting from the front will make the back a mess! Any technical advice is very much appreciated!

Try this on some spare fabric and see if it works for you
Pin stitch start
Pin stitch finish
If this doesn't help try doing waste knots.

Thanks Dragonrider. Though I'm not sure I can do the pinhead stitch because I'm stitching over 1 on linen...

I have only stitched on 14 or 18 count Aida, but since I've started using a hoop, I have been starting with waste knots. With the hoop, sometimes it is hard to run the needle through to finish, but I manage.

Keeping the back neat on an HAED stitching 1 over 1 is going to be, IMHO, almost an impossible task.
Not so difficult when doing larger blocks of color, but with the amount of confetti in most (if not all) HAED charts, neat backs tend to be the first thing to go. I pay a fair amount of attention to the back of my work on afghans because the backs will be seen. On other projects, especially HAEDs, as has been often said on this forum, there is a reason that a back is called "the back". I hope this frustration doesn't keep you from enjoying stitching your piece.

Carole

First, why do people worry/care about what the back looks like? You never see it once it's framed?
Second use the waste knot method to start and end your stitches. Here are two EXCELLENT videos demonstrating this and parking threads and it looks like she is also stitching 28 over 1 with 1 thread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuTXsIRttTA" target="_blank

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C-qFbH-cjE" target="_blank

This is what I do also (as in the video) and I learned it from these videos!

I watched the videos and that definitely looks like the way to go if you are parking and only stitching with one thread. I am not a parker though and I am having the same problem with one of my projects that I am stitching on 28 ct with one thread. I just can't fit the needle under the stitches on the back to start or end off so I can see how using the waste knot will come in handy for this for sure. I think it would drive me insane though to have all those threads ended on the front of my work but that's just me.

I hope to start my very first one soon too and very helpful links!