I’m still working on this large street scene; I’m hoping to have it finished in a couple of months. This is a Photobooth picture that leaves much to be desired in terms of detail. One thing that’s evident from this picture is that I’m trying different methods to finish this one.

Usually, I work by color. I find all the stitches with a particular thread throughout the pattern and I complete one color before moving on to another. That’s how I started this one, but it is simply too large (9 in x 12 in) to reasonably count accurately.

So, I switched tactics. I thought that I could stitch the traffic cone in its entirety. My pattern is comprised of four pages, and parts of the cone are on all four pages, meaning I was shuffling around a lot. I branched out from the cone to the entire  last (and smallest) page – what corresponds to the lower right corner – and tried to complete that page completely. I got pretty close. Then I also completed all of the black on the right, just to have it out of the way.

My most recent tactic is evident in the mid-right bottom of the fabric. Complete a 10 x 10 stitch block in its entirety before moving on. I did two in about an hour (minus one color that I didn’t find at the store the last time I went). Though this method isn’t necessarily my favorite way to work, I think it’s the most safe for a project of this size. It will keep me from any further skipping of columns, which I’ve already done in one spot.

It also makes it look like significant progress is being made whereas the middle part, where I was still going through color-by-color, just looks like a haphazard mess.

I made this pattern a while ago, so I don’t remember why I wanted it to be so large. After this, though, no more large needlepoint. I’d like to standardize around 5 x 7 or 6 x 9. Those are reasonable sizes that can be completed in 3 months or so.