Variegated Thread: Avoiding The Stripey Look?

[Play Outside]

When stitching a block of color in variegated thread, what stitching pattern do you use to avoid stripes?

[*barb*]

i haven''t done it but i did read in the cross stitcher magazine to avoid that look, you do each stitch at the same time, i.e do one full x and then do the next full x and so on, instead of the usual //////// and then back \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\the other way.

i hope that makes sense.

[Rose]

What I did was stitch in blocks instead of in rows. I do each stitch before moving on.


So instead of going
XXXXXXXXXXXX

I go
XXXXXX
XXXXX
XXXX
XXX

Or something like that just so the strong colors stay together.

If you go into my gallery and go to the 2nd page there is a picture of Cats in cups and all of the cups used varigated threads you can see what I did with them to make the different patterns.

[Mabel Figworthy]

I stitch in "splotches", vaguely (very vaguely) circular bits until I see the colour is about to change, hen I start a new "splotch". I used that approach in the background of my assisi rose:



Occasionally I will stitch half crosses and then back to cross them all, which makes the variegation very subtle and occasionally quite surprising if there are very contrasting colours in your thread