Okay, maybe this entry should be called “Love Symbol in Blackwork,” but it got you here, right?
Clean as a Little Red Corvette
I am so happy with how clean this finished design looks. Getting it to that point was a bit complicated, though. So come with me as we get technical and talk about what goes into designing - "Manly Art of Cross Stitch" style.
Artist’s rendering of my design software
The outline of the name (which cannot be mentioned lest a flock of lawyers descend on me) has some unusual angles, which means two things:
1) The backstitch lengths used for the outlines are not standard and not continuous. They cover short lines of different lengths and different angles.
2) The full stitches that fill in the name need to be augmented by many fractional stitches so there is no dreaded white space.
If I draw an outline in my design software, it can automatically fill in the empty space with fractional stitches. But leaving all of those fractional stitches in can actually leave the finished product looking a little sloppy. What my design software can’t do is evaluate which of those stitches are unnecessary for the finished product to have that clean, clean look that I like so much.
Gen X knows what I’m talking about!
In my post “Strange as Angles,” I briefly mentioned how I solve this problem, but let’s see it in action. In order to figure out exactly which stitches I need where, I first work the outline and then fill it in. Consider this closeup of work in progress...
Actual work by an actual stitcher/designer/all around neat guy
Let's start with that loose purple backstitch line on top. From where that thread comes up on the right to where it goes back down through the fabric on the left, it needed to travel 5 stitches to the left, and down 1. Since we are stitching over-2 on this piece, the thread appears to travel 10 holes to the left, and down 2 holes. For this section I added the bottom outline as well, and I plotted out both the top and the bottom as I worked each column of silver stitches leftwards.
If you look at the top left of the silver stitches (next slide, please), you can see that it will take a full cross stitch to fill this space. In fact, I have already come up at the bottom left of the X with the silver thread. But uh oh, the top left of the X goes through a hole that already has my outline floss threaded through it. Since we want the outline to sit on top of the primary stitches, the best solution (annoyingly) was to un-stitch the top outline, finish the X and then re-stitch it.
Extreeeeeeeemmmmmmeee closeup
The next silver stitch to the left turned out to need that hole as well. That meant the outline had to be un-stitched (again), the full stitch worked (again), and then the outline re-stitched a second time. This seems like a lot of work (SPOILER: it is!), but it was all necessary so that not only would the silver stitches fill the space correctly, but they would lie neatly under the purple outline for that clean look. An added advantage to constantly un-stitching the outline was that I was able to make sure that the two strands of outline thread always laid untwisted and parallel to each other.
Once the name was finished, I stitched the rest of the outline so the little blackwork Love Symbols would line up perfectly with the border. They presented their own challenge since those along the color-change line require two different colors of thread in order to show the gradient.
No snappy caption from me. These were a pain.
One other tip I discovered for backstitching on linen/evenweave is that the threads can be counted over-1 instead of over-2. Remember, we said that in order for the outline to cover 5 full, over-2 stitches, it is actually 10 holes across by 2 down? This means that our outline can be worked in two lengths of 5 across and 1 down. If you tried this on aida, it would pierce right through the center of a square, since neither 5 nor 1 are divisible by two. Evenweave gives us the ability to anchor our longer stitches in the middle for - Say it with me: A Cleaner Look!
Actual cross stitch math
Whew! That’s a lot to take in. Being a designer means I make myself go through all this so that you don’t have to. The finished chart will look as perfect as I know how to make it, and you can just relax and enjoy stitching it.
But don’t take my word for it, you can get it right here.