Incoherent Scribblings

Down and Around

Is it Wednesday already? Apparently so, because a reminder popped up on my calendar this morning that it is SBQ Day and boy do I have a doozy of a question for you, courtesy of Karen F., and that is:

When starting a new project, do you start in the middle? If you do, once you’ve worked down to the bottom, do you turn your chart and fabric around so that you are stitching the top section downwards again or do you just stitch upwards from the middle?

Well, I am definitely a middle-starter! I have tried to start from a corner a few times, but every single time I do it ends up off-center.

But where do I go from the middle? Now that is a good question! At first I was going to say that I work towards the bottom right corner, but then I realized that while I did that for “Passing Admirers” I don’t do that all the time.

I prefer to work towards the right and probably do that 75% of the time, but I have been known to go left, up, or down from the middle because I tend to work by “blocks.” Usually when I stitch I set small goals within my project and I stitch whatever way those goals take me.

For example, when I did Maggie’s torso it went up and to the right, but today I stitched a ruffle on her dress and it just so happened to go down and towards the left. Since I like to work this way I have often thought about “gridding,” but it sure seems like a lot of extra effort.

Now, for the idea of turning my chart and fabric around… I don’t do that and don’t think I could. Even with the chart the right way up I have been known to confuse similar symbols, so I imagine if I tried turning everything upside down it would just be courting disaster!