Thursday, March 26, 2015

The Mini Project Has Evolved - HAED QS Clara Progress

Many of you know that recently my enthusiasm for my current cross stitch projects was waned. In order to coax it back to life I worked on a few mini projects, which helped tremendously. In fact it was so successful I decided to move onto QS Clara.

Now I know that at over 50,000 stitches I can not claim that this piece is in any way 'mini', but compared to some of Heaven and Earth Designs new super sized charts Clara is positively tiny. When I began this chart I decided to stitch the black outline first and then fill in the colour. This has been the trick to how I have managed to work on this while staying in a mini mentality.

Each section of colour filled in feels like little finish, which builds on the piece as a whole. So when I sit down to work on this, instead of feeling overwhelmed with how much is left, I just concentrate on the little piece currently being stitched. It has worked really well and I am having a lot of fun with it.

HAED QS Clara HLD WIP. Heaven and Earth designs Quick Stitch Clara, Hannah Lynn Disney Work in Progress.
HAED QS Clara - Hannah Lynn Disney
Anyone who has stitched a Hannah Lynn pattern knows that the hair is almost pure confetti, which makes it very time consuming. Working each section individually has made it much more manageable. I am still working on my Somebunny to love mini at lunch time and for those situations where Clara would be too unwieldy.

This piece is also a great example of a parking method I use, which I call parking by feature. It may have another name but I have never come across it. This is a technique I use to avoid lines appearing between columns and I find it also breaks down the chart into more manageable chunks.

Have no idea what I mean by parking? Check out my tutorial for the column method: Parking Tutorial

I will be posting a tutorial on my park by feature method in the near future, however if you have any questions or suggestions please leave a comment below.

29 comments:

  1. Like a cross stitch coloring page! Good work and it looks close to a finish.

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  2. She looks beautiful! It must have taken ages to do the black outlines but makes it more fun when you can just "colour" each section in. I still don't park but will be interested to see your tutorial.

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  3. The black outline would be fun to stitch, I think! And then the filling it would be like a coloring book, only one has to stay in the lines. :b I like your idea of parking by feature; I've fallen victim to lines between columns even on smaller projects and find them so annoying! Plus it lets you choose whatever section you want to work on~ :D

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  4. I so love these Hannah Lynn designs but I hate stitching with so much black. I did buy one, but don't know if I'll ever do it.

    Linda

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  5. Glad to hear your mojo returned and Clara has come out again. She looks great.

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  6. Great design! I'm glad you've found a way to enjoy stitching it.

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  7. Ahhh yes... Hannah hair=madness lol
    But she is looking great:)

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  8. She is looking stunning! I'm looking forward to your next tutorial :) I've used both your gridding one and parking one!

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  9. It looks great! Can't wait for your tutorial, I am looking for the parking that would work best for me, and this one seems right.
    Ciao,
    Cinzia

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  10. Lovely stitching,glad you got your stitchy mojo back.

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  11. WOW! she looks lovely and so many hours have gone into her and all of them worthwhile!

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  12. I love Clara, and you're much further on than I am, I've finished all the black, but very little colour, great to see yours coming together

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  13. Clara looks great. I am very interested in seeing your park by feature tutorial.

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  14. Clara looks amazing =)
    I am looking forward to that parking tutorial, I also have issues with those line between the columns I stitch =/

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  15. Yours looks awesome compared to mine! You are not far from being done, well done on picking her back up! I'm still sorely tempted to restart her.

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  16. Great stitching, sometimes all it takes is to stitch a few little ones to get back to loving the big ones.

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  17. I'm glad your mojo seems to have returned. Obviously doing the smalls was the break you needed. And I'm glad to see Clara again too. I love watching her being coloured in! :)

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  18. I'm so happy to hear that you are enjoying the larger wip but using a mini/small stitching mentality. It's a very good method you're implementing. Cara is stunning and you must be very proud to have gotten so far on her.
    xo Alicia

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  19. Great progress! She's looking lovely :D

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  20. She looks fabulous! Well done on coming up with a smalls bits system for working on her.

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  21. She is beautiful! What a great way to break the project down into smaller sections.

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Would love to read any comments you would like to leave. Thanks for brightening my day :)