A while ago I bought a cross stitch pattern to make as a gift for friends who are expecting their first baby.
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@JillsJoy It indeed is an elephant! But not Dumbo. At least as cute though

@dikgelukkig it does look very cute so far. What a cute gift.
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@dikgelukkig I'm cross stitch curious... do you keep the reference pattern next to you then like eyeball the individual coordinates, like up down left right? Or do you overlay the template somehow?
It feels like it would be easy to mess up

@hwll I keep the pattern with color symbols on my phone in a cross stitch app, which also has easy grids.
I then find the centre (which I also marked on my cloth) and start with the color that is closest to that point. And then I just count. I usually try to go row per row, but that depends on the pattern; sometimes itโs easier to work in clusters.
And when I finish one color, I take the next one and start somewhere in reference to the previous color. And I just count again.
For example, I started with the color that represents the flower symbol in the screenshot. From the centre (intersection of the blue line and the line where the arrow is) I counted to the point where I wanted to start, and I started stitching. When I finished that color, I took the 1 symbol because then I could build onto what I already had from the previous color.
If that makes sense as an explanation

In the app I can also mark the stitches that I have completed, which makes it a bit easier to follow along.
And yes, itโs very easy to mess up. Especially when you have shades of the same color and it gets difficult to distinguish them, like the grey in my pattern. I just had to undo some stitches because I miscalculated
But I donโt usually do very big projects, so then itโs a bit easier.I know other people use other approaches and ways of tackling a pattern, but this is how I do it.

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@hwll I keep the pattern with color symbols on my phone in a cross stitch app, which also has easy grids.
I then find the centre (which I also marked on my cloth) and start with the color that is closest to that point. And then I just count. I usually try to go row per row, but that depends on the pattern; sometimes itโs easier to work in clusters.
And when I finish one color, I take the next one and start somewhere in reference to the previous color. And I just count again.
For example, I started with the color that represents the flower symbol in the screenshot. From the centre (intersection of the blue line and the line where the arrow is) I counted to the point where I wanted to start, and I started stitching. When I finished that color, I took the 1 symbol because then I could build onto what I already had from the previous color.
If that makes sense as an explanation

In the app I can also mark the stitches that I have completed, which makes it a bit easier to follow along.
And yes, itโs very easy to mess up. Especially when you have shades of the same color and it gets difficult to distinguish them, like the grey in my pattern. I just had to undo some stitches because I miscalculated
But I donโt usually do very big projects, so then itโs a bit easier.I know other people use other approaches and ways of tackling a pattern, but this is how I do it.

@hwll sorry for the long explanation, but I did not know how to explain this in a short version

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A while ago I bought a cross stitch pattern to make as a gift for friends who are expecting their first baby. At that point I thought: plenty of time to finish this!
And then life happened and yesterday I realised I only have two or three weeks left until the baby comes! Still enough time, but since I canโt work on it every day, I had to start sooner than later. So yesterday I sorted everything out and began stitching. Made good progress today, so feeling good about it

Biggest part is done!
I hate back-stitching though. Obviously it is sometimes necessary to give it a nice finished look, but I do not like doing it at all


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Biggest part is done!
I hate back-stitching though. Obviously it is sometimes necessary to give it a nice finished look, but I do not like doing it at all


@dikgelukkig Cute!
But omg yes to hating back-stitching. It's vexing, somehow? I have never been able to properly describe why I find back-stitching so annoying.
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@dikgelukkig Cute!
But omg yes to hating back-stitching. It's vexing, somehow? I have never been able to properly describe why I find back-stitching so annoying.
@calimae For me itโs partly that I donโt know if Iโm doing it properly. I never looked up how to do it, so I just try to make it work, which doesnโt really feel โrightโ.
And the second thing is that I always make mistakes. Here too, I triple checked and I *still* got it wrong

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@calimae For me itโs partly that I donโt know if Iโm doing it properly. I never looked up how to do it, so I just try to make it work, which doesnโt really feel โrightโ.
And the second thing is that I always make mistakes. Here too, I triple checked and I *still* got it wrong

@dikgelukkig It never seems to look quite how I think it should, either. And so easy to get it wrong! Then pulling it out to try again is treacherous... ugh.
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Biggest part is done!
I hate back-stitching though. Obviously it is sometimes necessary to give it a nice finished look, but I do not like doing it at all


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@dikgelukkig very cute!
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@dikgelukkig aaah! Nice! I did not see that design coming
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@dikgelukkig oh my god is that cute!!!
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@dikgelukkig
Oh wie sรผร! Gibt es das als Vorlage oder selbst ausgedacht? -
@dikgelukkig very cute!
@florine I thought so too

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@dikgelukkig oh my god is that cute!!!
@jenni right?! Fell in love with it when I saw it

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@dikgelukkig
Oh wie sรผร! Gibt es das als Vorlage oder selbst ausgedacht?@MagicMutti Unfortunately I do not have the skills to design a pattern like this
I bought it on etsy: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1769299283/customized-baby-announcement-elephant -
@MagicMutti Unfortunately I do not have the skills to design a pattern like this
I bought it on etsy: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1769299283/customized-baby-announcement-elephant@dikgelukkig
I don't have those either
Thank you for the link! -
@jenni right?! Fell in love with it when I saw it

@dikgelukkig it is extremely cute and you did a fanstastic job in stitching it with those slight color changes.
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@dikgelukkig it is extremely cute and you did a fanstastic job in stitching it with those slight color changes.
@jenni aaawww, thank you!

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