Stitchers' techniques, and WIP

One thing that is interesting about looking through other stitchers' blogs is seeing the various techniques people use.

I learned to cross stitch by purchasing a kit and just diving in, and along the way I've discovered things I was doing wrong that I had to change, things I was doing 'wrong' that I shrugged off because what I was doing works well for me and looks just fine, yadda.

I expect there are one or two 'right' ways of doing things, though, and probably some ways of doing things that are easier than what I'm doing now. I know I will continue to learn and try new things (like the 3/4 stitch - I now realize that I probably should have been using it, instead of just using 1/4 stitch, in past projects, but it's so fussy that I'm not sure I will now use it everywhere I should. I may skip it and just go with 1/4 stitches in some situations).

Anyway. Seeing how others stitch: fascinating. A couple of things I've always done is start in the middle of the cloth/pattern, and stitch one thread at a time. I've seen pics on blogs of people starting at the edges, and having multiple threads going all at once. The pics where the stitcher is going row by row - stitching every stitch and color in a row before moving on to the next row - are particularly interesting. I don't think I could do that. I have tried tucking away a thread while working with a different color, and have trouble not getting everything tangled. And at this point I'm so used to counting single colors, and counting around other colors (if any of that makes sense). But the other technique really looks cool in progress.

Speaking of WIP, I worked on my Crossed Wing Collection snowman over the weekend. Didn't work on anything else, so made a bit of progress.


I'll stitch the branches, and then move on to the snowman to his left. I had planned to start on some of the snow on the ground next, but I can't find the blending filament I need in any of the shops I've been able to get to, so I'll have to wait til I can order it. I'm holding off on backstitching, french knots, and stitching the birds until I either need to or feel like it. Normally I do all the backstitching last, but since there's some in every single part of the pattern, I know I won't want to do it all at once at the end.


Comments

Katie said…
Oh too cute! I like to back stitch as I go so I can see the design pop more. It's so much fun to see all the different techniques people do. Just do whatever works best for you. The "parking" method is what you are probably referring to where you let the threads hang. I do it for my heaven and earth designs because they are complicated. I wouldn't do it for my other stitching though.