A few months ago, when I first started guest blogging here, I talked about how I prefer to stitch smaller projects. It’s mostly because they don’t take forever to finish and also are less expensive to finish. But occasionally, one has to stitch something truly epic. And I mean EPIC! Lord of the Rings kind of EPIC. My goal for this year was to stitch a bunch of ornaments, however, I too have been bitten by the EPIC stitching bug.
I’ve stitched large pieces before but never anything that I could truly say was EPIC. By EPIC, I mean something that’s solidly stitched like an HAED or Kustom Kraft piece. About the closest I’ve ever got to epic was the whitework I stitched last spring for my in-law’s 50th wedding anniversary.
Sorry, it’s not the best picture ever but all ecru is really hard to properly photograph. You can’t really tell from this angle but there’s some fairly extensive beadwork in there too along with some perle cotton and a variety of random specialty stitches.
I guess we could also consider this Dimensions Gold Collection stocking slightly EPIC too. It’s mostly solidly stitched.
The tweeding also got old after awhile
But that’s all in the past.
In December, Mel (of “Epic Stitching”) had a giveaway to get an HAED. I never win anything but I managed to win that. I had my choice of HAED so I chose this:
Mel was also nice enough to hook me up with a piece of 25 ct Lugana large enough to stitch it on. I’ve put in about 600 stitches in the left hand corner and I still haven’t quite covered a square inch of fabric (which is pretty impressive). I had put the first 10×10 square on when I realized that it would be a very good idea to grid the fabric. After all, with something this EPIC I didn’t want a repeat of the dragons.
I’d never gridded my fabric before so I Googled how to grid cross stitch and came up with several tutorials, including one from this very website. After doing a bit of research, I decided to use this grid pattern:
I used some bright orange sewing thread I had leftover from making Ducky Momo. I like how it crosses right on the corner. This is only one page of the HAED (which is slightly scary).
I found the grid so helpful that I decided to apply it to another EPIC project on the UFO pile.
I decided to try a different kind of grid with this one just to see what kind I preferred.
As you can see, the corners don’t have thread over them. I’m not sure if I really prefer one kind over the other.
Overall, I really like the grid on larger solid stitched projects. Yes, it does take a few hours to put the grid in but it saves the frustration of hours of frogging later on. I can always double check my work easily. There are more color changes on the Snow White piece, so I find I can work one color in one square and then park the thread in an adjoining square (hence all the threads you see sticking out in the picture). With my masters degree looming, the gridding also ensures that I can put down the piece and easily pick it back up for a little work if I have a free afternoon.
Comments are always welcome and appreciated....