I’m apparently so poor I can’t even pay attention.

I’m sending out a design to a model stitcher and I’m humming along nicely, crossing each task off the list as I go. Next up, cut the fabric, a nice piece of 32-count black Jobelan.

For the nonstitchers here in the Sieve, we figure out how big to cut our fabric for the design we want to stitch on it by taking its number of stitches wide divided by the fabric’s weave count, then the number of stitches high by the weave count. (Think of 1 stitch as 1 pixel.) Stitchers’ fabrics are always evenly woven so that the design will be proportional height and width. Common weaves amongst intermediate-advanced stitchers have 28 or 32 threads per inch. Some folks prefer to stitch over 2 threads at a time, making the functional count 14 or 16, respectively. Some folks prefer to stitch over 1, but they’re insane.

So I measure and I cut. This is the second piece I’ve cut from this yard because I was unsatisfied with the design and made it bigger, thus making that piece unusable for this project. I sew the edges [note to self: get a serger] and as I’m sewing along, I get to the tag that says 28-count black Jobelan.

I verified this, of course. It took me 20 minutes to count to 28 on black Jobelan.