Oh, my....

It'll get faster as you get used to it. And it looks ever so much nicer when it's done.

Elizabeth

Thanks. I needed that. About 3 hours of work and so very little to show for it. :)

Fortunately, this piece is going to my mother so hopefully parental pride will kick in and she'll like it no matter how awful it looks. Hehe.

Tracey

You're not alone. I've never been happy with my work on linen, so I've been using a lot of even weaves and even been using some Aida again. I seem to do my best work on Aida, Lugana, Jobelan or my favorite, Monaco. I love the look of linen, but I doubt I'll ever get to a point where I love working with linen. It may be that you're the same way, but give it a try and see how it goes.

Cheers,

Laury

Tracey wrote:

It`ll be second nature in a day or two! Honestly! I must admit, though, that when working one of my own designs, I tend to use Aida just for speed!

Pat P

When it is second nature to see the "vertical thread", things will speed up. I am not sure what is slowing you down, but my take on aida is that it makes finding the next correct hole on blank canvas easier to find. From there on in it is all more difficult than on evenweave. Even when my pieces leave no canvas showing, I much prefer linen. HTH.

Are you working on actual LINEN with the different diameter threads or are you working on some other even weave? LINEN even weave can be an absolute *itch to work on -- especially the stuff with the slubs and different diameter threads! Really nice, even, clean linen is much nicer to work with. All of that being said -- I don't like linen either and I NEVER recommend it as a first time even weave fabric!!! Not only do you have to contend with the wonky threads but they seem slippery to MOI and doing specialty stitches can be a nightmare -- especially satin stitches. It just makes the transition from Aida to even weave more difficult than it needs to be. Next time to work on even weave, try choosing one of the blended fabrics that others have mentioned. If you don't want to have to go buy a big piece of something, post here and let me know and I will send you a piece of something from my stash. When Stitcher's World got sold, I "inherited" a bunch of blended even weaves and some REALLY lovely linen that isn't all wonky. Since it was free to MOI, I'd be happy to share a bit with you :-). CiaoMeow >^;;^<

PAX, Tia Mary >^;;^< (RCTQ Queen of Kitties) Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their whiskers! Visit my Photo albums at

Ooooohhhh . . . . so well stated! Dianne

I may just be abnormal. I love linen. I love everything about it. The slubbier the linen, the more I love it (although for cross stitching, obviously it never gets TOO slubby).

But then, I'm a texture person and not as much a pattern person. I love the way a design sits on linen like a dais (I'm sure the effect is much better on silk gauze). My fingertips love the contrast between smooth cotton or silk fibers and the gravel of linen.

I love linen and everything about it. Oh, did I say that already?

I'm new at this so what exactly do you mean by blended fiber even weave fabrics? Are you talking about the fabrics called Cashel, Laguna, etc., rather than just plain old linen?

Tracey

Found a seller on eBay selling 12x17 pieces for ~$1 a piece so I bought a piece of Lugana, a piece of Jobelan and a piece of something else to see what the differences are.

The fabric I'm stitching on now is just plain linen. (Well, Silvery Moon linen.) I got it as part of a set of pattern/fabric on eBay since I'm having a bit of a problem finding places to buy anything but Aida and even the Aida selection is very, very limited.

Thanks. Tracey

Yah. Speed. I wanna see progress, dagnabbit!

Tracey

It's the whole 'which hole is the correct one' that is slowing me down. Like you said, with Aida, it's pretty obvious which is the right one. Not so obvious with linen, at least not this piece.

Tracey

Actual linen. It's the different sized threads that's causing the slowdown, I do believe.

Like I explained in another post, this was an eBay purchase that con- sisted of a pattern and the fabric and, even without the fabric, the deal was pretty good. :) I have to head to a supply store today to pick up the beads and braids (and the Snow White floss) so, if they're not too busy, I'll have them pull out some of their fabric and see if they can give me a crash course on fabrics. Might even buy a different piece of fabric and put this aside for later.

Heh. Well, give me a bit. I may end up at least liking it. Right now, I'm dreaming of kindling. :P

Tracey

Perhaps it's a visual "perception" thing, as I think Jim was trying to say? If you've only stitched on aida, then it can be difficult to see the individual weft and warp threads of linens and evenweaves because you're so used to seeing and looking for the holes.

Instead of looking at all the "holes" in the linen, look for its weave and visualize the "#" (*) in the ground cloth (I assume you're stitching over-two on linen?). Once you see the "#", then it's easy to ply the needle from one corner of the "#" to the opposite corner. HTH.

Sky, who hasn't stitched on aida in years

(*) the "#" symbol represents two weft and two warp threads in the weave of linen.

weft = horizontal threads and rhymes (sp?) with left warp = vertical threads

Yep. The first night it was 'one, two, one two, poke the needle in.' Yesterday was a bit better as I started looking for the thread that was running alongside the stitches that I had already done.

Yah. 3-over-two. That's been a problem, too, because I can't 'see' the fabric thread right next to a completed stitch. I'm just *really* paranoid I'm gonna miss a thread. Trying to get used to being confident that since there's a fabric thread that runs above the stitch, then it's right beside the stitch, too. :P

Tracey

I'll admit, my very first linen project was MLI's Celtic Christmas and I didn't think I'd ever catch on. I absolutely hated the variance of the individual threads. And the slubs. Ack.. hated those too. However, once I got into the rhythm of it, I loved the way it was looking. No, I'm never gonna be as fast with linen as I am with aida, but the end result is so worth the effort.

Keep at it, and even though you may never love linen, you'll really like the way it looks. Tegan

I haven't stitched on Aida since...gosh, I guess the late 80s. I've re-tried Hardanger (22 count) here and there, but can't stand how stiff it is, so I switch over to linen.

I do like the luganas and monacos and such, but I did try it recently over 1 and THAT was not nice.