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The first thing the Lazy Wench thinks of when reading stitch diagrams with text descriptions that start with "Up at one..." is 'If you have to get up at one in the morning to do this, I'm not going to stitch!' Reading those diagrams and turning the mass of numbers and arrows into fiber on a ground is not always easy. Repeat from 7 does not make sense if you can't really tell what you did at 7 or if 7 should now be a mental '1' or if you should still think of it as 7. There are times when too much detail is way too much.
The Lazy Wench does not know any stitches where I remember what I am doing by thinking of a number and associating it with a stage in the process of creating the stitch. I think of the entire process or parts of the process in easy to remember descriptive words. For example, there's a stitch in the Historical Headache that must be worked up or down the diagonal as I stitch a traveling vine. Turning the directions or the stitching will not work. I finally saw the pattern to the stitch and I don't have to look at the diagrams any more. There are three parts to the stitch; a diagonal, a horizontal and a vertical. Always, the diagonal goes in first. Then the either the vertical or the horizontal, depending on where the needle has to end up to be in the right place for the next stitch. Once I figured that out, I could go like sixty. I had expanded my comfort zone.
The key was breaking the stitch down into parts, grouping the parts and then remembering the relationships between the parts. Good divisions are grouping by order, where the parts touch and what must support or tie down another part.
Let's look at an example. Padded satin stitch. You know that the final layer is going to go horizontal for the leaf you are stitching. Therefore, you know that the bottom layer of stitching must go on the vertical. You don't need to draw a huge diagram, you have the concept. See, you had a comfort zone and didn't think you did.
Another example is eyelets. The general rule for eyelets is 'dive into the middle.' OK, all that up at one, down at two is not needed. You have to bring your needle up at the outside edge. What you really need to know about eyelets is how many threads are you crossing over to get to the middle. You need to know if it will be round or square and if any stitches 'stick out' to make a particular sunburst. Once you have that information, eyelets are easy. The comfort zone is still cozy, no?
There are times when the dreaded 'up at one' just can't be avoided. Usually that means you are working on a Jean Hilton design, where the order of many overlapping stitches is critical. Even then, an understanding of the desired effect is quite helpful in preventing frogging. If you are supposed to be creating mirrored starbursts and you go clockwise for both of them, you've either got to adjust the design or frog it out. This might be a grumpert zone.
I'm not saying I stitch without the directions handy, the steel sieve that is my brain requires refreshers. I simply no longer need the refreshers as frequently.
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