Mt. Rainier Cross Stitch

[madamwitty]

I've been asked to make a cross-stitch of Mt. Rainier for my aunt.  Over the weekend I went insane and started a 12 x 18 inch version at 14 stitches per inch.  I have since recovered from my insanity and now plan to start over on something smaller.  I might decide to keep going with the large one and finish over the course of 3-5 years...

Comments

[samll]

Well, how many stitches can you make per day? Your initial project seems to be 42,336 stitches...

[madamwitty]

Looking at the work I did, I estimate I did about 600 stitches over the course of 5-6 hours on Sunday. That gives me, at best, 120 stitches per hour. If I continue at that rate, it would take about 350 hours of work for the whole project. (Which, by the way, matches fairly well with the estimate I did on Sunday night based on the fraction of the area I thought I'd covered.) Before I started, I estimated it would be more like 100-125, which was more acceptable to me. If I wanted to finish in a reasonable timeframe, say 6 months (which is probably the latest I want it to be ready), I'd have to spend about 13.5 hours a week on the project. I'm not sure if I'm willing to do that.

I'm not really sure why my stitches per hour is so low, though; I thought it would be higher, especially based on the amount of time I thought I'd spent on my Link to the Past cross stitch magnets. Maybe I'm just misremembering. Or maybe it's because the fabric is larger and harder to wrangle.