Crossstitchforum - A FREE forum for Cross Stitchers

ok so usually i just found the center of my fabric and the center of the design and gridded that way..
but now..i'm going to grid and kit up my HAED that I just recieved in the mail yesterday ( ) and I have no idea where to begin...
the one thing i LOOOVE is the floss list is in numerical order

so anyway..i'm on my way out the door now but I figured if someone could give me tips from experience..as I know many of you have stitched and are stitching now.
I want to be able to stitch square by square ( 10x10) a whole page at a time..starting at the upper left corner.
I've never done this before.

and it is stitched over 2 on 25ct right? so how do you grid that? I mean usually you count by 10 and box it that way..so now since it's over 2 how do you count over on that to make your lines?

haeds are stitched over one cf. cant help with the gridding as im buying pre gridded fabric

Yeah I went with the pregridded fabric too (and boy is it fantastic!) HAED's are stitched over one on the 25ct. You could do it over two but then the finished project would be enormous. I liked that they put the floss list in numerical order too except at my local craft store they don't have the floss in order. It takes me nearly an hour every time I go in there to find all the right numbers. Anyways, sorry I can't be of much help. I can't wait to see you start this!

I will be watching this thread closely as I have just ordered two HAED's
Star Weaver and Crystal Enchantment.
I generally start all of my stitching from the centre of any piece so not sure how I will go....planning my attack already on how I am going to tackle this piece.

But looking forward to the challenge.

xx

Where did you guys purchase the pre gridded fabric....how is it marked on the fabric?

i bought mine at http://www.balkan-gallery.com/ It's actually 22ct evenweave and the grid is part of the fabric so nothing to pull out but it only would be useful if you are stitching the entire fabric which is the case for most HAED's.

Thanks Kerri....might see if my local stitching store has anything similar....

I haven't tried gridding before, but I would think there's two possibilities.

1) find the center of the fabric & the center of the pattern. Start gridding from there. (probably harder)

2) look at the dimensions of the finished project & fabric. For simplicity reasons, here's an example--lets say that the pattern is 12x18 and your fabric is 18x24. Since you have 6" total spare fabric from side to side and top to bottom, divide it in half.
Start gridding 3" down from top and 3" in from side.

If I'm wrong, please somebody correct me! You'd think a math teacher would be able to do this without thinking!

BB, that's how I gridded for David and it worked well. I was able to start stitching at the top rather than the middle for once.

BB is right about the different ways to grid it.

One thing I noticed when looking at my HAED pattern is that there really isn't a bigger line on the pattern for those 10x10 grids. Every line looks the same. It makes it really hard to see 10x10 squares on the pattern so I'm a little worried about transfering that over onto the fabric. Maybe it's just me or maybe it's just my particular pattern. I'm thinking about tracing the 10x10 grid lines on the pattern to make them darker but I wouldn't want to do anything that would mess up a symbol in a square. Does your pattern have distinct 10x10 grid lines on it?

I didn't really notice on my HAED whether the lines were darker or not. You could go over them with a highlighter so as not to distort any symbols but still make it easy to see the square. I know on my fractal they didn't have the numbers at the top or side so I had to go in and write them in because there was no way I was going to be able to keep track of that otherwise.

On my HAED, I've only really worked in lines of 10 before, so I put my magnetic strip over the rest of the pattern and concentrate on that strip and work down half the page at a time (as I photocopy and enlarge it, each page goes onto 2 pages) I don't make any so called gridding, but it works in the same way and works quite well so far!

Hope that makes sense?

kerbear879 wrote:I didn't really notice on my HAED whether the lines were darker or not. You could go over them with a highlighter so as not to distort any symbols but still make it easy to see the square.

I must be having a really off day because I didn't even think about that. I've been debating about what to do for days. I think I need a vacation to recharge my brain.

i bought the large graph and on mine the lines are very easy to see..

and over one!?! omg..ok..that's tiny stitches..haha so i can grid the same..blocks of 10..I think i'll find the middle of the chart and fabric and start there to grid..but stitch from the top left..

ok that makes sense..
ty!

yep very tiny stitches indeed! I am doing mine on 22ct and I have a hard time seeing it..can't imagine doing it on 25ct!

Not sure what to suggest about gridding the 25ct
but for the chart, I tend to use a photocopy to mark my progress, so that even if I damage or distort my copy I can still replace it with another photocopy

I'm doing mine on 28 count and didn't bother to grid. I work mostly cross country and colour in the chart as i go, and i haven't had a problem with counting yet. I started in the top left corner though, i think that's definitely the easiest place to start, i just went with the measurements on the chart and cut my fabric to that size with 4 or 5 extra inches around the sides, then just went in 4 inches from the top left corner and started there.

Wow, I feel like the only one that does gridding! Just wanted to add that I really recommend it. It's helped me more than I can tell you! I use sulky metallic threads to grid with since it pulls out easily. I grid over 5, under five and then grid the page boundaries in another color. It's time consuming, but I personally find it a time saver in the end. Here's a pic of my WIP if you want to see what I do with the gridding...

Good luck with your HAED, CF, I can't wait to see you start. It's great that so many of us are giving them a go now. I'm completely hooked.

I haven't gridded mine as I've never gridded anything. I do the same as Nic, which is to work a strip across the chart, a block of 10 deep and I colour in the chart as I go as well. Although it's a massive project, I just see it a page at a time and within that, a block at a time, so it's not really any different to anything else.

It's interesting to see the gridding. I think i'd find it really helpful to grid, but I would be worried that I had counted the gridding boxes wrong, so pre gridded would probably be best for me to start with, but I think I'd like to have a go at it.

The way i gridded mine,was that i sewed just across every ten.Worked one page at a time.Didnt stick to sewing ten by ten,if one colour had afew symbols out of the grid ten but not to far i'd do them.And worked from a photo copied chart blown to the next size up.The great thing with gridding,that i found that if i did go wrong there wasnt a load of counting because of the gridding.Hope that makes sense.