Pattern Marking October 19, 2005
Do you mark or highlight your patterns or can you follow them without any markings? Do you make copies to mark up, or do you mark originals?
I don’t mark my patterns at all. I tried it when I first started counted cross stitch, and ended up getting ink on anything and everything, including my fabric, but not reliably including the places on the chart that I’d already stitched, so I gave up the practice.
These days I almost always work off of the original patterns. I’ll occasionally make a working copy of a pattern (then destroy it when I’m done stitching), if the pattern is in a book that is difficult to stitch from (some of those hardcover books from Leisure Arts are a real pain to stitch from), or if the pattern is fragile in some way. Some patterns that are folded tend to lose their symbols on the fold lines, and if I haven’t gotten there yet I find it irritating to have to try to figure out what each bent/worn out symbol is so I can stitch it.