Tips on working on large projects?

[biostitch2point0]

yeah, that's a good thing to remember. Crafting is for fun, no one's making you do it.
However the thing I'm working on now happens to be a gift, so I kinda do have a deadline .

[Koeniou]

My tip for large projects:

Find a way to keep the fabric clean! I'm currently working on an enormous tree skirt, and all I've got is a huge hoop to use. I've folded up the rest of the fabric on the sides and wrapped it in thick tissue paper and pegged it down. It stops the dust getting on it, and I can easily carry it around because its made the whole project smaller to manage.

[airyokama]

XDDDDD ROFL

I absolutely love your quote~~!!<33

I wanna stitch that up tooo~~ x3

[benjibot]

I've only made one really large cross stitch so far. Well, only one that didn't have copious white space. MyPhoenix Wright stitch ended up being exactly the same size as my Moblin stitch, but the latter was mostly empty.

What I did was start with the most common color, in this case navy blue, and starting from the center I did 10x10 blocks of color. My pattern was broken up in 10 stitch squares, so it seemed pretty natural. Also, I found that my standard length of floss could cover a full 10x10 block pretty handily.

I did every single navy blue stitch first. Some of the less frequently used colors would only have a stitch or two, so it was handy to have as much of the main color done as possible so I could work in stray bits. I more or less continued with each color (I think I used 15 or 16 for that one) in order of prevalence. Though, if whatever color I was working with was going to be going wildly away from the previous work (like the outline) I would go ahead and do another less used color to make counting easier.

[sirinth]

Here's a tip that would have helped me:
Start somewhere you can see some notable progress.
I started in one corner, and after hours of work, all I have to speak for is a block of grey. (Various shades of grey, but grey none the less)
It's very discouraging.

[earth_element]

using a copy draft of your pattern & shading the finished parts as you go is also helpful when working on a big piece so you don't lose your place & have to frog out (pull out) all of the stitches you put in if an error happens.

[Jessii]

The biggest project i made had over 60000 stitches, and took 472 hours all together, finished it in just under a year. I also managed to give myself repetitve strain injury from stitching for too many hours at a time!!

[Loora]

I'm a compulsive crafter with approwimately 13409750947109457 projects at the same time, so here are my advices:

- only have one large project at a time. It's going to take hundreds of hours, and you'll need to focus on it.
- if you can't take anymore of those damned background stitches, allow yourself some recreation and stitch another, much smaller project, just for fun. Don't start something bigger! (I should really listen to my own advice)
- force yourself to finish projects. It's just depressing otherwise... evening films are a great time to stitch those backgrounds, since you just have to fill the blanks if you followed the advices upwards. At two hours an average film, you can finish a huge project much faster.

Sidenote: am I the only one feeling like "There are no deadlines for hobbies" should be the next contest's theme ? Or, on a wider scale, "a craft quotation of your own design" ?

[jelibe]

You know, I'm taking that same advice and you've just posted it!!
I've just completed a complication dragon project and I'm now going back to the pitt pattern I started last year. Its not huge but all the samey colours where making me cross eyed!! I'm finishing both of my current projects before starting my next none gaming project!!

We can discuss the next comp when its time to. I've no ideas thus far!

[Dragoniron7]

Im doing a "medium" sized one right now, but its feeling very big due to all the black background. I have been stitching for about 3 weeks in my spare time and im not even half way through the background. I do feel like im getting close though, but sometimes i will just stop one color and start another one just to see some progression and get alittle satisfaction. Its the Thundercats logo, but an X-ray that you can see the bones...