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[amalnahurriyeh]

Thanks, everyone, for the super-nice comments on my first post. I just finished working the lion for my son, and wanted to show it off. :)

From yarncrafts

Here it is from the front! I ran out of stash floss at one point and needed to buy new (this was floss that was over a decade old! I think it might have changed color with time), so there are color changes, but I don't think it's too awful.

And to give you an idea of how bad my technique is...

From yarncrafts

Here it is from the back. Eep. I'm just telling myself nobody will ever turn it over once I glue it to a backing.



In terms of all of your advice, I got a hoop while I was at the craft store. It did help with the wrist pain, but I actually had a sizing problems; I got a good-sized hoop (8 inches), but I'd already trimmed some scrap off my piece of cloth, so the part I was working wasn't 8 inches across! This meant it was hard to stretch. I'm going to be starting my next piece on a bigger piece of cloth, so I won't have that problem this time.

And working with shorter pieces of floss when dividing is definitely easier. It does mean I have to rethread more often, which can be annoying, but not ending up with terrible knots is much more important.

If I can pick your brains again: I'm starting work on this tonight, which I'm working for my son's cousin. (There was a LOT of debate about whether Cousin should get A LION JUST LIKE ME or A WHALE.) The pattern has big swatches of a single color at the center, and then smaller stripes above and below. My instinct is to work it linearly, starting from the left-hand side and working the tail first. But should I start with the big, medium blue shape of the body, and then add in the above-and-below bits? Would that make it structurally stronger?

Comments

[birgitriddle]

I've only been stitching regularly for two or three years (I'm not sure when I started doing it regularly), but first learned five years ago. However, I start from the center like pretty much everyone else said and work outward. The order I do things in is mostly dependent on the design and how my brain decides to organize the different shapes and parts that compose the pattern.

There's been only one time I did not work from the center and that was from a Subversive Cross Stitch kit in which the designer originally tried it that way, but found that she didn't have enough room for the design if she worked from the center. She ended up putting in the instructions that you should start from the right hand side, but the pattern was just a phrase and only needed one color: black.

I've learned how to cross stitch mostly from kits and I still primarily work on kit projects though I am starting to think about expanding out of my comfort zone with kits and just getting patterns and my own thread and aida fabric.

I'm a bit weird because I don't use a hoop since I don't like them, so I can't really give a suggestion as to that. I want to use scroll bars, but I can't figure out the ones I own.