The Lack of Landmarks

The hardest thing about this project, other than the "large" chart that isn't large, is that there aren't landmarks to help me keep track of where I am. With the houses I used to stitch, there were windows and walls and spots that let me say "Yes, this is where I'm supposed to be." Even the landscapes had tree branches here and there.

So far this project has given me nothing but clouds and -- finally -- a bit of the horizon. I can't begin to tell you how much that blue line helped me out once I reached it.

On Monday, a reader commented about how I mark my cloth before stitching. Those are grid lines basted every ten stitches to match the lines on the printed chart. Before someone taught me how to do those lines, I messed up and abandoned more projects than I want to admit. Look at cross-stitching pictures on instagram and you'll find much prettier ways to do it.

The lines make it easier to match where I am on my fabric to where I am on the chart and even if they don't always keep me from making mistakes, they help me fix them. On this part of this project, I'm more likely to add an extra stitch of peach than to do a bunch of unstitching to make that spot yellow.

When I'm done, I'll just snip the grid lines and pull them loose. The fist few times I was terrified that they'd be stuck there forever, but I've never had a problem removing them.