All of my friends are having babies so I am busy making Baby Sleeping signs! I am working on this one (above) for my friend, Betsy, who is having a little girl.
It's hard to see in a small picture but I had to stitch basketweave in the central white area. I tried doing a different stitch but the compensation was just too awkward. Compensation is what happens when you can only do part of a decorative stitch because you "run into" another color. When you compensate, you do as much of the stitch as you can in the confined space. Take Nobuko for example (diagram above).
The pattern calls for one regular stitch and then one stitch that crosses over 3 intersections of mesh. If I was doing Nobuko in the central white area of the Baby Is Sleeping canvas, I would have to compensate often. For instance, I would run into the blue letters and only be able to cross over 2 intersections at some points.
For this reason, I decided it would take more time to compensate Nobuko than just stitch basketweave. Some stitches are easy to compensate (Diagonal Mosaic for instance) and others are much harder. Until you are really comfortable with decorative stitches, only use them in big areas that need little compensation.
Have fun with these stitches...they can be really fun and they certainly enhance a canvas!
Now, I'm on to my next baby project for my friend, Katya!
