Making Massive Projects

[shanoa]

I'm in the process of making a pattern for myself and I just realized how truly massive this thing is going to turn out to be. If I do it at the original size it's going to be 489 stitches by 500 stitches, on 16ct Aida that's gonna be a little over 2.5 FEET per side!

So the questions I have are:
1. Is there a way to reduce the size of the project without losing too much detail?
2. If not, where do I get Aida that huge?
3. How on earth do you work on a project that big?!

[Servotron]

1. If you don't want to lose too much detail and you don't want to make the pattern smaller, you would have to work on a piece of high count aida/linen/evenweave. Higher count = smaller picture.
2. 2.5 ft in inches is 30 inches. You can get get fabric sheets bigger than this. sewandso.co.uk have them so I'm sure other places have them too.
3. viewtopic.php?f=8&t=14453 This thread has info on working with high count pieces of fabric. You will probably want to invest in a frame to work on.

[funkymonkey]

You can look at ebay as well for specific counts/colors; I got a yard of white 18 ct aida from there. My local Hancock Fabrics also has bolts of 14 ct aida so you can cut as much as you need. Too bad they don't have other thread counts as well!

[shanoa]

Thank you SOOO much for the help. I'm probably going to have to put this project off for a while since it seems I'm going to have to buy a larger frame to accommodate it and its just not in the budget right now. I don't know why I didn't think of switching to a larger count of fabric on my own.