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Materials question

Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2017 2:29 pm
by BadgerSensei
I've seen quite a few people use a blue colored pen (i think?) to mark off blocks on their projects. I was just wondering what that was. Also, is it easily cleaned off? Is it worth using on large-ish projects?

Re: Materials question

Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2017 2:57 pm
by blackmageheart
It's a water soluble fabric pen or marker - kind of the inky equivalent to tailor's chalk in a way. (I still use the chalk for some things, though.) You can use it to grid aida, draw out embroidery patterns, mark seam lines etc etc. And it just disappears in water! :D
There are plenty out there and they are reasonably priced, too.

Re: Materials question

Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2017 3:01 pm
by BadgerSensei
blackmageheart wrote:It's a water soluble fabric pen or marker - kind of the inky equivalent to tailor's chalk in a way. (I still use the chalk for some things, though.) You can use it to grid aida, draw out embroidery patterns, mark seam lines etc etc. And it just disappears in water! :D
There are plenty out there and they are reasonably priced, too.
Thanks! Random follow-up question: how do you usually stitch on 28 ct. fabric?

Re: Materials question

Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2017 1:30 pm
by blackmageheart
Depends what I'm doing! I either stitch over two (which essentially makes it like 14ct) or over one if I want something really small! And I generally just use one or two strands of thread for the stitches :)

Re: Materials question

Posted: Thu Apr 27, 2017 1:58 pm
by BadgerSensei
Another follow-up question: how do you resize a design? Like if you have a patter that is for 28 ct, but you want to do it on 18 or 16 ct, how would you go about resizing that design so you don't start stitching and find out that you don't have the right size fabric.

((Sorry if I sound ignorant. I'm not new to cross stitch, but I'm still pretty new and haven't done these things before.))

Re: Materials question

Posted: Thu Apr 27, 2017 7:10 pm
by Pyper
The key thing to remember with count is that it is stitches per inch (typically imperial). So a 28 ct has 28 stitches per inch, while a 14 ct only has 14 stitches. If your pattern is 140 stitches wide, it will be 5 inch on 28 count, or 10 inch on 14 count. If you used 18ct it would be 140/18 = 7.8 inch.

size (width) = [number of stitches wide the pattern is] divided by [count of fabric]

I would recommend always checking your pattern dimensions in number of stitches (count them yourself to confirm), and then counting and tacking (thread or pins) those dimensions out on your chosen fabric. Some of the pattern making programs default their dimensions to specific fabric counts, or assume you are going over two squares instead of one. Additionally, not all aida fabrics are exactly square, and some will be 16ct in one direction and 17ct in the other.

Re: Materials question

Posted: Thu Apr 27, 2017 7:34 pm
by BadgerSensei
Pyper wrote:The key thing to remember with count is that it is stitches per inch (typically imperial). So a 28 ct has 28 stitches per inch, while a 14 ct only has 14 stitches. If your pattern is 140 stitches wide, it will be 5 inch on 28 count, or 10 inch on 14 count. If you used 18ct it would be 140/18 = 7.8 inch.

size (width) = [number of stitches wide the pattern is] divided by [count of fabric]

I would recommend always checking your pattern dimensions in number of stitches (count them yourself to confirm), and then counting and tacking (thread or pins) those dimensions out on your chosen fabric. Some of the pattern making programs default their dimensions to specific fabric counts, or assume you are going over two squares instead of one. Additionally, not all aida fabrics are exactly square, and some will be 16ct in one direction and 17ct in the other.
Thanks for the detailed response and the wonderful advice! I'll definitely keep all of that in mind. I really appreciate the information. :)