HAED tips?

I fell in love with HAED when I saw them in a shop in Canada two years ago. I bought 3 kits and get them out every now and then..... tremble, and pop them back in the bag ! Looking forward to any advice. Which kit or kits have you got, Kim ?

Take it slow, take it easy, and don't psych yourself out! They're big, yes, but they're nothing more than another project. Make one x after another. I've got four underway at the moment and am close to finishing one of them. I find the confetti stitching can get irritating, so I put them in rotation with something else. But I

*LOVE* the patterns I have. One (the one nearly finished) is a baby gift for my nephew. Who is now just over a year old... :) And for all I LOATHE doing it, I couldn't imagine working a HAED without gridding the fabric first, at least along the outside edges. It's FAR too easy to make a simple counting mistake and not find it for too long. Good luck, and enjoy!

And to reapeat Polly, which patterns? Mine are: Frog Prince QS, Kissing Frogs, Titania, and Motherhood QS (the almost complete one)

Heather in NY

I haven't decided yet I love so many . . . I'm going to start out with one of their little freebie - bunny on path. Excuse my ignorance, but what is confetti stitching? So I do a one over one on linen and make a full cross each time?

Thanks! Kim

Lots of needles! You may even look at it and decide to start in the center and work out - there is a lot of color changing, confetti stitching with those. Depending on how you organize, I know several people who've set themselves up with the PAKO needle organizers, so they can have a lot of stuff threaded, and kept ready, without getting all tangled.

know that Nordic Needle has them, the shop I used to manage also has them.Very helpful for these big projects. I don't think you need to grid these projects because it is really solid stitching. And a lot of people use Aida rather than linen, as the ground is really fully covered.

My best advice - use 2 highlighters with the chart. A color such as yellow to mark the symbols you're about to stitch, then a different color to go over that when you've finished those stitches. On charts with a lot of symbols, and lots of confetti or just small areas of those symbols, I've found this really helps. My other hint - don't panic or fret if you put a stitch in the wrong color - just mark your chart somehow so that you know what you did, and it doesn't throw off your entire design (essentially if you're not going to pull it out). Often, it just won't matter if one more stitch of some color gets done.

Mostly - enjoy - they're long term projects.

Ellice

I've just started my first one - Spirit of Winter (see Sheena? I told you I like winter). :-)) Definitely use the recommended 25 ct fabric. Mine has 25 pages and is the biggest one I've ever done, but I absolutely love it. Whenever I feel my eyes going crossed, I pick up my easier work and play with that. Which one are you doing?

Sharon (N.B.)

Mine are................ Dreamweavers, Bubble Flower and Lily of the Valley. All by Michele Sayetta, but all completely different.

I saw Bubble Flower as a puzzle - I wanted to get it so bad! Kim

That would certainly be a challenge !

Charts by Scarlet Quince

are similar. If you go to their website, they have a lot of tips for stitching, including some fantastic ways to anchor the floss when doing scattered stitches. I personally don't grid because I always work near or right up against what I'm doing. Whatever you do, *don't* stop stitching at the edge of a page if there are further stitches adjoining on the next page. If you stop at the page border, the borders will be visible in the finished project.

I've found that it really helps to make up an envelope or bag with 18" lengths each of the necessary blends so that I don't have to stop and put the blended needles together. I can just grab and go. You'll defiintely want to copy the chart and use highlighters to keep track of where you are. Change colors every so often so you can have a visual way of marking of progress. (Look! I started on purple today and look how much I got done!) I keep track of my hours, because when that project's done, I want to KNOW.

You can see what "progress" looks ilke at:

in TX

If no one else has answered you, confetti just refers to when there are scattered stitches in a color, rather than a grouping of them. So, you do a stitch, the next of same color is not adjacent - generally more than a couple of stitch spaces away. Essentially single stitches of a color scattered within the pattern. A lot of designs that are digital conversions of a photo, or as in the HAED ones, artwork, with lots of color changing or graduation, will have them.

The HAED for the most part are recommended on 25 ct. I've known people to switch to 32 ct and go over 2, or 16, even 18 ct aida - which will have the design larger than 25 ct over 1. However you like to stitch will work, just take a look at the size of the design you're about to do, and then decide.

Ellice