direction of reading a chart

by Olive Whittm
(united kingdom)

I am new to Hardanger so I bought a book of the stitches and have been practicing them on spare linen. As I am familiar with counted work, that part was not a problem and looked very nice.

I worked a central diamond pattern, this has an area of linen around it before begining the wide outer border.

My problem is where to begin the outer border? There is no indication of which direction to work from? Do I work up, down, across, outer edge, inner edge or middle? I'm totally bewildered.

HELP Needed

Olive