Cross-Stitch

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October Fractal from Cross Stitch Collectibles

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I wait each month to see what the fractal from Cross Stitch Collectible will be. I haven’t been brave enough to stitch one, but I have several friends who have stitched them and they are just lovely and neat to watch as WIPs (works-in-progress) as they post on Facebook or in forums I frequent.

Along with the fractal you can purchase, each month there is a free bookmark that is inspired by or taken from the fractal of the month. The one for this month reminds me of a snowflake swirl. What do you see?

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Comments

  3. I ordered the fractal 116 pattern and all the supplies to do it with. Close to $100. Don’t buy one of the fractal patterns. The time to stitch it was not a problem, but the stitched project does not at all look like the picture. The colors are not vibrant, there is no definition, and it turns out being a really muddy-colored fuzzy piece of work. I threw it all out. It took me over two weeks to stitch one of the 28 pages. It wasn’t the time involved…happy to give it two or three years of work if it had turned out like the picture that was presented. I will never order anything from this that site again. Misrepresentation…shame on them.

Have you read?

Do You Park Your Cross Stitch Thread? Try The Royal Roads Method

I have not done a lot of big cross stitch projects, but sometimes even with small projects it can be hard to decide exactly where to begin and how to work through the chart if you’re working with multiple colors. The general categories for the possible methods are known as cross country and parking. 

Cross country means that you’re working one color at a time, moving around the chart (or the section of the chart you’re working on) until you’re done with that color. Parking means you’re working in a smaller section and doing all the colors in that area, “parking” the threads by leaving them attached to the canvas but out of the way while you finish each section. 

Royal Rows is a specific way of parking named by Alison Royal, which is explored in detail on a post on Stitching Daily. 

The idea is that you’re working one “tower” of stitches at a time (she uses a section of 10 stitches across by 20 down, but you can do whatever makes sense to you). You work all the stitches of a color at a time, starting at the top left and working your way down. When you’re done with a color you can park it where needed in the section below your current tower (known as the dungeon) or in the “east tower,” which is the section to the right. 

There’s also a specific way of dealing with thread ends when you’re done with a color. This is a super simplified version (head to the blog post at Stitching Daily to get all the details) but the basic idea is that you’re working from left to right and top to bottom across the work, parking the threads in the next section when you’re done with them and systematically choosing which color to work with next. 

The whole idea of parking is kind of overwhelming to me though I will admit that it makes a lot of sense. I guess I need to try it on a smallish big project and see how it goes. Do you use the parking method of cross stitch? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via Stitching Daily]