Stitching at the speed of light!

[CitrusOda]

Hey everyone,

I believe that I'm currently suffering from slow stitching, it can take me a long time to work on a project.

I was wondering how long does it roughly take for you to stitch? and if you might have any tips?

[blackmageheart]

Depending on my mood, I might get anywhere from 50 - 200 done in an hour or so. If I'm fully into a project, I'll stitch for several hours a day and get well into the 1000s. I'm well known for being fast around here! (They even gave me a unit of measurement many years ago, haha)

I do have tips!
1. Try not to rush yourself. Speed comes naturally after doing it a lot, there's a lot of muscle memory going on with the fingers and hands.
2. An important aspect of quick stitching is the ability to count ahead and know which bit of the pattern you're going to follow. Planning ahead actually helps on this...for example I'm going to stitch a lady on a dragon, I'll choose where to start, which colour I'll be using first and which path around the pattern I'll take.
3. Don't time yourself, but challenge yourself to get as many stitches done in a time period. I usually watch something on my 2nd pc monitor while my pattern is on the 1st. Atm I'm watching Star Trek TNG (yet again!) because it's familiar and I don't need to constantly look at it to know what's going on! An episode is roughly 45 mins long, so I see how much I can do in one episode. With practice that increases

Don't worry about going slowly, if that's what you feel comfortable with. It's better to enjoy the stitching and get lots done that way, than force yourself to go faster just to finish up!

I hope that helps!

[Firehawke]

Not sure about my average stitching speed, but I know that lately I've been getting through about 800 stitches on my Treasure Hunt Bookshelf project in a weekend (which usually affords me at least 6 hours a day or so)

I totally agree with what BMH said!

Especially having something familiar on, whether it's a TV show, movie, book on CD, or music, is a huge help to me!

Also, I've noticed that I go faster if I have really good light, especially natural.

If I'm working with a lot of confetti stitches, parking my threads sometimes helps me feel like I'm going faster...big blocks of color do that, too (if I'm in the mood for that )

And if all else fails and I can't see to pick up the speed on a project, I will often set it aside and work on something else for a while (couple of days...or weeks...or even months) and then when I come back to it, I seem to work faster (even if it's just in my mind)

And, above all, when I find myself getting on myself because I feel like I'm not working fast enough, I remind myself that there's no rush and to not stress about it...just enjoy the process!

Good luck!

[CitrusOda]

Thanks for the tips