This is one of those things in cross stitch that I know is so important and helpful but that I rarely do, or at least not well enough for it to be totally helpful.
Gridding your cross stitch fabric is a great way to break down larger cross stitch patterns and make it clearer where you are in the pattern at any given time. It’s a process of marking the fabric in various ways into 10 stitch by 10 row grids, just like you will find on your pattern.
Once you’ve applied a grid to your cross stitch fabric, you can determine the center of your fabric and your pattern and work from there to see what square of the grid on your fabric corresponds to which grid on your pattern.
You can probably imagine why this would help you keep track of where you are in the pattern, especially if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t finish a pattern in a timely manner after starting it (guilty).
I have a project I’m thinking about starting to work on again that I gridded a little bit using embroidery floss, but I didn’t do a very good job, so I think I need to redo it before I get started again.
This time around I’ll take the advice of Amanda from Crewel Ghoul in her great post about ways to grid cross stitch. The post covers the three most common ways to grid cross stitch fabric, more on why you would want to and how to actually do it. She also talks about the best tools to use and the right method for doing so.
It might seem obvious to you, for example, but until I read this post it never occurred to me to start my grid with the outside edges of the project instead of marking the fabric from the center out. Check out the post for more tips, and let me know if you ever grid your cross stitch fabric and how you do it.
[Photo: Crewel Ghoul.]
