Following on from my 'Stocking up my inventory" actitivites, Sae has managed to get all my cloth and threads for me. All except for some special Kreinik 032 thread which is apparently some metallic Pearl coloured thread. I'll have to hunt for that myself, or look at what kind of substitutes I can use. So my supplies are almost ready and are in transit somewhere in the world, waiting to get back to me on the 18th.

We've decided that any or all prep work can happen before 1st May, such as gridding, preparing the cloth, whatever and what not. Just as long as there's no stitching. For myself, I'm going to go hunt up a water soluble pen to draw 10x10 grids on the cloth. I'd probably do the top row and the first column just to make sure that I'm leaving enough space on the sides. And then I'd grid maybe a month's worth of stitching. Not too sure yet. We'll see how it goes once I get my hands on the cloth.

Other than that, I'm going to need to decide what to do to prevent the cloth from fraying. Sae says she uses masking tape. So maybe I'll go with that too. Some sites have recommended doing a blanket stitch on the perimeter. I have no idea how to do that and it sounds like a lot of work. So masking tape is sounding better at the moment.

I'd also get the pattern all ready and printed too. Maybe mark out goals or set out the pace for myself. Set up some kind of inventory sorting system for all my threads. At the moment, I use 2 strands to stitch and with 18ct cloth, Sae has told me that 2 strands will be good too. I normally separate out a single strand and thread it through the needle with equal lengths so that when I stitch, I have 2 strands. Its much neater and doesn't cause unnecessary tangles so I think I will keep doing that. So for my prep work, I'd also like to start preparing my lengths of thread and separating it out into single strands. That will save some time while I'm stitching.

Well for now, I'm a lot of talk but no action. Just wait til I get my hands on my supplies! I'm going to make as much use of this planning month as I can.