Gridding

I got a good start on my Sea Turtle piece yesterday. I ordered the kit from mybobbin.com and paid with PayPal. The company is vased in Kaliningrad, Russia but the kit was shipped from The Netherlands. It was a seamless transaction and being able to use PayPal gave me pease of mind. 

I opted not to use the 16ct Aida cloth so raided my stash for an appropriate fabric. I found this antique white fabric in my stash. I checked the thread count one way then the other. This was a tip I learned from one of Jean Farish's FlossTube episodes. I probably should have used my metal ruler.

The warp (threads running parallel to the selvages) is 30 threads per inch.

and the weft threads are 31ct. 

Anything stitched on this will be slightly bigger in one direction than the other. I decided I wanted my sea turtle picture to be slightly taller than wider so have oriented it that way. with the smaller tnunber of stitches per inch going vertically.

Some stitchers start 3" in from a corner. I prefer to stitch from the centre, folding the fabric in half one way then in half the other, fingerpressing a crease at the fold junctions. Then I work out from there.

This is how far I got yesterday. 

I found it annoying to have to count so much so decided late last night to grid the fabric and got started on that. I found a nicely contrasting dark sewing thread. I find it easier to grid in a zig zag out from the centre, technically over 8 sts and under 2. I actually go over 8 then turn the corner and go under one stitch down and one stitch over then over 8 perpendicularly. Gridding takes a lot of time so this way saves me a LOT of counting because I go from where I've already been.

As I stitch those areas, I'm careful to not pierce the sewing thread. I snip out the grid threads as I finish each section. Any that do get caught are easily pulled out with tweezers. 

This way I can also jump around to different squares more easily than just stitching out from what I've already done.

Compared to the 2 over 2, 40ct piece I just stitched for Teresa, this is much easier to see.