The World of Cross Stitching - UK (2020-02)

36 The World of Cross Stitching http://www.cross-stitching.com

Your Questions Answered

If you choose to start

at the corner of your fabric

instead, this means you will need

to calculate how much extra space to leave

around the first stitch yourself, which you

run the risk of getting wrong and ultimately

not having enough space on the fabric to

complete your design. You may not even

realise this is the case until you reach the

opposite side of the fabric! It would also

be difficult to position your work exactly

central on the fabric too, making framing or

other potential making up possibilities more

difficult to execute.

I

love the ‘Snowy

Woodland’ design in

issue 287 (Dec, 2019) –

I was wondering if there is

a summer version?

Jurga Yasmine,

via Facebook

Hannah says: This set

of woodlands has been

very popular! There’s a

springtime version called

‘Bluebell Woods’ which

can be found in The

World of Cross Stitching

issue 255 (June, 2017) and

a vibrant ‘Autumn Woods’

in issue 272 (Oct, 2018).

Whilst not specifically

summery, the spring

woodland features pretty

florals and may just be

what you’re looking for.

QU ICK

Q&A

I

’d love to stitch the

butterfly trio by

Durene Jones that I saw

on the Win It page of the

July issue (282). Can I buy

the charts somewhere?

Carol Hefner,

via email

Katirel says: Durene

has her own Etsy shop*

where you can get

downloadable PDFs of

her charts. The designs

you seek are: ‘Butterflies

In Flowers 1 - Swallowtail

And Orange Tip’,

‘Butterflies In Flowers 2 -

Purple Emperor And Large

Blue’ and ‘Butterflies In

Flowers 3 - Peacock and

Orange Sulphur’. Enjoy!

Paula Milne: Feel free to

experiment, because if you

don’t like a colour scheme,

then blackwork is one of the

easiest to change. I’ve done it

on both aida and evenweave

and they both look lovely.

Tracey McRobbie:

Be patient, count, recount

and count some more. The

detailed look of this stitching

technique is wonderful.

Barbara Chapman: I love

blackwork but rarely do it in

black, as I like it to tie in with

the room it’s planned for. My

pal did a Victoriana lady for

her mum and hated it when

stitched, so I did the same

one in maroon.

Francine Von Lewis:

I have previously always used

14-count aida, but recently

I’ve switched to 16-count.

Always try to go over the

back of stitching rather than

having gaps on the fabric,

as the thread will be visible

through the holes.

Claire Fisher: Get your

counting head on and check

every stitch. It is so easy to

make mistakes and they do

show up, so be patient.

Trijntje Huppel: I love

blackwork and I have made

some with different colours.

The last blackwork stitching

I did was a design of Lesley

Teare’s called ‘Anemone’.

Kay Nettina: I always start

in the upper-left corner and

then work my way down and

across. It makes it so much

easier to keep count.

Joanne Milner: I like to

work on 16-count aida and

use a size 26 needle. I tend

to choose my own colour

schemes. It’s a great way to

use up my stash of threads!

Find us on Facebook

and join in with the

chat. If you’re lucky,

your tip might appear

here! Just log on to

http://www.facebook.com/The

WorldofCrossStitching

and hit ‘like’ at the top

of the page!

Friendly advice

We asked our Facebook fans for their top tips on

producing beautiful blackwork – here’s what they said...

Starting out

Q

What is the difference between

starting a piece off in the middle or

at a corner of your fabric? Thanks!

Jo Earl, via Facebook

A

Fiona says: I’d always recommend

starting off your stitching in the centre

of your fabric, as this should ideally be

where you’ll start from on the chart as well.

This ensures you won’t run out of space to

stitch the design as long as you’ve cut the

fabric to the correct size (we always list this

in the Shopping Lists for our projects in The

World of Cross Stitching) or if you are using

pre-cut fabric from a kit.

When starting off, fold your fabric in half

exactly vertically and horizontally – where

the two creases meet in the middle is where

you start stitching from, finding the closest

stitch in the middle of the chart as indicated

by the central gridlines, and then working

your way outwards. Our charts have handy

arrows to show this, but other pattern

manufacturers may use different methods to

illustrate the centre of a pattern.

TECHNIQUE FOCUS

Starting out

For the best results start

in the centre of your fabric

KNOW

• HOW

Beautiful bluebells

Find this pretty springtime

scene in issue 255 (June, 2017)