I decided to try tenting again.
Today's start is a HAED called Catch a Falling Star by Julie Fain (retired). This was the first HAED pattern I ever bought, and I LOVE IT. It is a huge piece though, with dimensions of 400 x 509 stitches or 16 x 22 1/2 inches. I would like to finish it in my lifetime.
I'm stitching it on 25 ct ice blue lugana, 2 over 1 tent, using DMC. For some reason, this time around my stitches are laying quite nicely, though the coverage isn't spectacular. I keep reminding myself that it only looks bad when you're inches away from it. It'll look fine at a distance.
This is also the first time that I really felt the need to grid. I've gridded my other HAEDs, but only by page, not by 10x10 block. I'm a cross country stitcher, and a pretty good counter, so I never really saw the purpose of gridding each block. This piece is completely different. So much of it is the same colour (139,929 stitches of DMC 939) that it is almost impossible to accurately count the tent stitches. Gridding makes it SO MUCH easier -- consider me converted.
I will say that tenting is just ridiculously fast. I only put in a few hours here and there today, and I managed 728 stitches (or 14% of the page). That's lightning speed compared to my other full-cross HAEDs.
I have 2 other HAED starts coming up in UCJC -- I think I'll do the butterfly in full-crosses, but the Storykeep might just get tented too.
Ages ago, before Christmas, I took a picture of all of my kitted up projects spread out on my treadmill. I took another picture today. Hard to believe there are so few left on there. Only 10 more starts. :)
Wow, it's amazing that you can keep up with all the starts. Keep up the good work. You JF looks good so far. I loved a lot of her pieces, but they announced they were retiring her and then the did it so fast, I didn't have the time to get the money together to buy any of her charts. And I like so many of them.
ReplyDeleteI'm leaning back on my chair and reading, and your start looks great. :D The coverage looks good.
ReplyDeleteThat looks great! I also started my first HAED with tent stitch. I now realize that I need to grid also, since there is so much of one color in the sky and water and the small stitches are harder to count. I might even try gridding on some other projects too!
ReplyDeletegreat start on your HAED
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