Advice on parking!

[topbiddy]

I was wondering about the merits of 'parking' and any advice on this. I have done a few big projects with loads of colours but have never used the parking method. I just stitch to the end of the colour finish off and start another. I know some people who manage to 'park' with loads of colours at the same time.... Is it best to try it first with a few colours? I can see me getting in a right mess. I usually pick a colour and do as much of an area as I can with that colour and then fill in and so on. But I would like to know if 'parking' saves time and is more manageable as I do seem to spend a lot of time threading and finishing off. My backs of projects are never perfect ( but not messy either) but that doesn't worry me.
Just thought I would ask opinions on this.

[rcperryls]

Parking is not something that I do, but we have had a lot of discussions about parking, most recently someYou Tube video tutorials links were suggested. Also this thread, Parking Guide That Made Sense to Me has some information and a few tutorials. If you do a Search on parking you will find nearly 1000 posts in all different threads. I'm sure that some of our parking experts (and we have quite a few) will chime in with their tips and advice. I think parking is something that I would like to do, but I go nuts with all those threads hanging.

Carole

[bookknurd]

I've tried parking a few times now, and I just plain don't like it. That's just personal preference though.

Look at some of the videos or tutorials in the threads that Carole mentioned. Try out some of the methods. If you like it, keep doing it. If not, go back to stitching cross-country (i.e. following a color around).

I think it would be faster if I could get used to it, but all those threads hanging down drive me nuts.

[Mrs Milkybar Kid]

I'm a parker! Can't say I ever watched any YouTube videos or read any of the guides to parking (eg the one Scarlet Quince has) as they would have made my haed (ha ha) spin! It is one of those things that is far easier to do then it is to explain and everyone does it slightly differently - as with most things stitchy. I just found myself naturally doing it one day with a few of the colours I was working with on a HAED and then thought, why don't I just do this with all my threads and it just clicked! For my HAEDs I work in rows across and in each 10 x 10, once I finish off a colour if it appears in the 10 x 10 below or to the right I will park my thread:

I mark parked threads in a different colour on my chart than my completed stitches so that I don't get in a muddle and pin the parked threads, that are not in the current 10 x 10 I am stitching on, out of the way.

Parking isn't for everyone, but for me it helps in speeding things along!

[rcperryls]

Can't say I ever watched any YouTube videos or read any of the guides to parking (eg the one Scarlet Quince has) as they would have made my haed (ha ha) spin!

Carole

[Stitchinkitty]

Parking scares the dickens out of me.I always have visions of a mangled tangled mess of floss.

[Trylla]

I'm a parker too. Though only on full coverage designs, like HAEDs.

I read the parking guide on the Scarlet Quince site (linked on a previous post) and then tried it on a project that only had a few colours on that page.



That gave me a chance to get used to parking without making my head spin. I don't park exactly like the guide suggests, I've adapted my parking to suite my way of stitching. Then I started working on areas with more and more colours as I grew more confident.



For me, I find it easiest to park downwards in 10x10 columns. So I may have multiple threads of the same colour going if it appears in more than one column on the page.

The only hard and fast rule I have with parking is that I always park my thread in the lower left corner of the next stitch in that colour. That's how I know what colour it is and how I ensure I don't become confused.

I've changed from Q-snaps to a Millenium frame for these types of projects, and I use metal clips to hold threads out of the way when they aren't in use (e.g. I've gotten to the bottom of a column on a multipage pattern, and that colour continues on the page below, but I won't be working on that page for a while). I also use little magnets to hold the clips in place so they don't flop around when I have to flip my frame.

[Mrs Milkybar Kid]

The only hard and fast rule I have with parking is that I always park my thread in the lower left corner of the next stitch in that colour. That's how I know what colour it is and how I ensure I don't become confused.

Oooooo forgot to mention that, very important - I do exactly the same thing!

[socialsue]

I will only park with certain kinds of design I am doing. For example: "Frozen Spheres" has lots of solid colors so I can park without a problem. If a design has too many similar color of grey, then I have to write a small piece of paper with DMC nbr and put in the needle that I am going to park. Otherwise, I would never know which is the correct DMC thread to use. My old eyes can't tell the differences between very light grey, light grey, grey, light dark grey, dark grey, very dark grey, etc...it would makes my head spin if I had to try to figure it out!



I use parking method while stitching on this design!



The wolf used many different shades of grey so this is when I had to write on paper to put on needle when parking!


socialsue

[Allyn]

I'm going to jump in here and ask a question since I'm trying to make friends with parking. Looking at the SQ tutorial, I understand the point they're making about parking -- that you always bring the needle up through a hole that doesn't already have legs of two other stitches in it. Using the parking method, you don't leave 'holes' that you later have to come back in try to get a stitch into the 'hole' without piercing the legs of existing stitches. But in the video, it looks like the stitcher is just cross-country stitching in 10 x 10 squares. She is leaving 'holes' that she later has to fill in. Maybe because she is only doing 1 over 1, piercing the legs of existing stitches isn't a problem, but it still seems like she is just cross-country stitching in a grid. Yes? No? Am I missing something?

[Mrs Milkybar Kid]

How I park is closer to the video than it is to the SQ guide. Essentially I do cross country in a 10 x 10 grid then park my thread in the grid below or to the right if there is a stitch of the same colour there. I tent 2 over 1 and have never had any problems with splitting stitches or filling in gaps surrounded by other stitches. I only ever park with HAEDs and I find focusing on a 10 x 10 grid makes me stitch quicker as I am not hunting for symbols all over the page! The first few HAEDs I completed I stitched cross country, but one day the parking just clicked and I haven't looked back!

[NeedleAndFork]

Even in parking there are many different approaches. Some people work strictly in 10x10 squares.. some ignore the 10x10 squares other than as a guide for counting and stitch all over their piece following shapes and colors, some stitch all of a color within the 10x10 square then park it below, while others work in precise rows so that they are always bringing the thread up in a 'clean' hole. I would suggest trying all of the above and seeing what works best for you. Keep in mind that what works in one pattern or fabric count may not work in another. For example, when working over 2 on 32 count, I have no problems working all the stitches of one color within a 10x10 area and then parking below - the stitches are big enough that I can find and complete the missing stitches easily. But I tried that recently with my HAED that is stitched over 1 on 28 count, and filling in the single stitches was a NIGHTMARE. I will never do that again.

My personal preference is to stitch 'areas' of the piece I'm working in that aren't necessarily 10x10 squares but that follow the shapes and contours of the design. You can kinda see that happening here...



Instead of stitching in a 10 stitch wide colum, I treated each o those pink bands as a column, then worked similarly with her hair.. the purple background and then the tail (that kinda looks like a Sr Suessian tree trunk). Sometimes an area is just too wide to do that with - like the purple background in which case I work just that area in 10 stitch columns until I can go back to working with the shapes in the pattern again.

An advantage of this slightly chaotic way of parking is that you aren't at risk of having visible lines in your work that correspond to the 10x10 grids that you work in as you are rarely working in straight lines.

One more MAJOR perk of parking is that you can start and finish your threadds on the front - just leave a small tail hanging on the front off to the side of the area you're going to stitch next and start stitching. Once you've finished that area, you can go back and trim all the tails. I generally just leave them there until I am going to stitch the area that they are in. The great thing about starting and ending this way is that you never have to flip your work. I don't even know what the back of my work looks like until I move it aside to put it out of my way at the end of a stitching session. But generally speaking I find that parking row by row (rather than cross countrying within each 10x10 square) usually leaves a fairly neat looking back. Most carried threads end up stitched over by the stitches that go inbetween. To me the back looks almostl ike and impressionist version of the original image. One of thse days I may actually photograph the back of my HAED to share.

[BizzieLizzie]

I love parking and mainly use the Scarlet Quince method, although I'm pretty flexible with it. I start each 10x10 block the SQ way but I switch to cross country within a block depending on the pattern. Then I start the next block the SQ way again. I find the flexibility between SQ and cross country from block to block keeps it interesting.

[Allyn]

Thank you so much for your replies. I get it now. I'm a cross-country stitcher, but I want to make friends with parking. I just couldn't wrap my head around cross-country stitching in 10 x 10 squares. I understand that it works, but in my mind, if I'm going to cross-country stitch, why park it when I can just finish the color.

...
An advantage of this slightly chaotic way of parking is that you aren't at risk of having visible lines in your work that correspond to the 10x10 grids that you work in as you are rarely working in straight lines....

I was hesitant about parking, too, because of this. I have seen the 'lines' left in stitched pieces because the stitcher worked in strict 10 x 10 grids. I didn't want to do that. Your method makes the most sense to me -- kinda the best of all worlds (for me, anyway) so I'm going to try that.

[Trylla]

I mostly follow the SQ guide … I generally stitch row by row, unless the same colour in the next row is beneath the stitches I just did. This makes it look like I'm cross country-ing more than I am. My only exception to this is if there is just one stitch under an empty space, I might stitch that too.

For example, if I'm stiching a fresh 10x10 block, I would do all the X's because they are the same colour and beneath each other. The red X technically shouldn't be stitched because there is a space above it, but I'll do it anyway because it's just simpler and quicker that way.

XXXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXXX
XXXX
XX

If there's a lot of space, I won't stitch the next rows, I'll park and wait till that 2nd row is filled.

XXXXXX
X
XXXXXX
XXX

Make sense?

[Trylla]

I just couldn't wrap my head around cross-country stitching in 10 x 10 squares. I understand that it works, but in my mind, if I'm going to cross-country stitch, why park it when I can just finish the color.

For me, the purpose of parking is to help deal with confetti. I never miss stitches when I'm parking, I never have to search the pattern for symbols, and I never have to squeeze in single stitches. Overall, it helps to make my stitching more even and pretty.

[fccs]

I kind of combine parking with cross country stitching. I try to stitch my big projects in 10x10 blocks, but soon I end up going cross country crazy again. But I find I still park my threads, marking their location on my chart, when I want to get back to another color, or when I want to again try to finish a block or row or particular feature.

[NeedleAndFork]

I was hesitant about parking, too, because of this. I have seen the 'lines' left in stitched pieces because the stitcher worked in strict 10 x 10 grids. I didn't want to do that. Your method makes the most sense to me -- kinda the best of all worlds (for me, anyway) so I'm going to try that.

Great! I hope it works for you. Do keep in mind when you start that you are learning a new technique here and it will probably take a bit of practice to really feel comfortable with it.

Another way to avoid the grid lines being visible is to not keep your edge completely straight.. once in a while extend your stitches out by one stitch, somewhere where the first stitch in the next 10x10 square is the same as the last one in the current one, or if the last color in a row in your current square isn't used anywhere else in this square but exists in the next square, leave it empty for now and stitch it when you get to the next square. I do this when I'm stitching those wider areas that need to be done in columns so that I have a bit of a ragged edge to help prevent visible lines between columns.

One last tip that I forgot to mention earlier.. this is what made parking click for me. When I park a thread, I mark my pattern. I have one color that indicates that a thread is parked in that stitch and another color to mark off completed stitches. This helps in a number of ways. First of all when you're getting ready to park a thread, you can see it's position relative to other parked threads that you've already marked and it helps you find the correct spot easily. This helps avoid errors in parking the thread in the wrong place. Secondly, when you're stitching and reach a stitch that you've marked as having a thread parked in it and find it empty or vice versa - a thread parked and ready but the pattern isn't marked.. it's an instant error check for you to go see what went wrong. Did you accidently park one row or column over? If you don't mark the parked thread on your pattern, when you reach it, you're just assuming that it is correct, and if you've got it in the wrong place, then from then onwards till the thread runs out, you'll be stitching the wrong color for that symbol.

One thing - you'll end up getting really good at threading your needle with this method, there is lots and lots of threading and rethreading! When I started, I needed a needle threader, now that thing just slows me down!

[Allyn]

... Another way to avoid the grid lines being visible is to not keep your edge completely straight.. once in a while extend your stitches out by one stitch, somewhere where the first stitch in the next 10x10 square is the same as the last one in the current one, or if the last color in a row in your current square isn't used anywhere else in this square but exists in the next square, leave it empty for now and stitch it when you get to the next square.....

Now see? I had been thinking about doing just that and here I was thinking I was being all clever and stuff.

[NeedleAndFork]

Now see? I had been thinking about doing just that and here I was thinking I was being all clever and stuff.

You thought of it yourself - so you were being all clever.. and especially all stuff. I just happened to also be all clever too. Though most people who know me well will tell you I'm mostly stuff. )