HAP-SAL beginning post! Also, my first attempt at gridding.

I've just recently learned about the wonders of gridding, and decided to try it on my first ever HAED pattern, "Ride the Wind", which I'll be plugging away at for the HAP (Huge Ass Project) Stitch-A-Long hosted by Crossed Stitches. I'm looking forward to it, but I'm a little intimidated by such a detailed piece since it's been a long time since I've done something this big for cross-stitch.

Gridding...it looks like a good technique to try, especially on an HAED piece, especially since I have a horrible habit of miscounting on any cross-stitch project I try and inevitably wind up messing up the pattern.

I think "Ride the Wind" will be a little more forgiving, at least.

Anyway, here's my first attempt at gridding - took forever, and in retrospect, I think I could have made it easier on myself with a 20x20 grid instead of 10x10, since I'm going to attempt this piece going over 1 thread of Evenweave.

This is a 16 x 20 piece of fabric, if I recall correctly. I'm kind of a combination of glad and mad that I decided to go over 1 thread instead of 2 - mad, since I'm probably going to ruin my eyes over this, and glad because going over 2 threads would have made this a freakishly huge piece, and much larger than I had originally expected. 

This is all your fault, CraftySasha.:)