Making Friends with Parking - New Question Jan24

[Allyn]

After being a cross-country stitcher for decades, I wanted to try to make friends with parking -- or at least give it a try since I'm not opposed to trying new things to see if they work out better than what I was doing. After reading and watching tutorials, reading the posts on the topic here and asking my own questions, I gave it a shot when I started my new project.

I know it looks a little chaotic in that picture; some of those threads are waste/away knots.

That's the beginning of Vanitas Still Life by Pieter Claesz.
http://www.scarletquince.com/scale.php?pat=CLA002" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

I'm doing the 'strict' version -- for lack of another name -- of parking in which I never leave an empty hole above a stitch. I'm leaving the needles threaded for speed and sanity (I think I'd go nuts having to rethread the needle for each stitch.) I use two colored markers for marking progress on the chart -- one color for marking off completed stitches and one color for marking where the parked thread is. So far, I've had 11 needles going at once, which isn't a lot, I know, but it's 10 more than I've had going before. Even though it looks like a hodge-podge, it's actually quite organized.

At first it was a little slow while I got my footing. It didn't take very long to train my eye to see the flow in the chart, however, and now I'm moving along at a pretty good clip. It's faster and the stitches are neater than doing it cross-country. I'm a confirmed parker now.

[NeedleAndFork]

Another one crosses over to the dark side!

You're braver than I am with the multiple needles. I tried that for a short while and said stuff it. I was spending way too much time trying to keep them untangled. I was also working an area with 30 or so colors on the go.. no way I could manage that many needles! I found that I rapidly got really good at threading needles quickly though, so at this point it is faster for me to rethread a needle even for just one stitch than to try to keep multiple needles organized.

It's looking great though, and I agree, I find my stitching is a lot neater when I park.

[littleturtlegirl]

I have just started my first project with parking. I will say I have a love/hate relationship with parking. I have a million colors going at one time and I am stitching sideways...Some days I like it and other days I HATE it. However I keep at it. I make it work for me. I find that I am making it the way that will work for me, hopefully I will learn to love it...

[Trylla]

Congrats!! I adore parking. I too keep my needles all threaded so I can switch between them for individual stitches quickly. I've been able to handle 40-50 needles without much trouble.

I do find that just letting them hang loosely can invite terrible tangles and the possibility of lost needles. I either (a) secure the needles to my grime guard (on either a Q-snap or scroll frame) or (b) I just stick the needle 1/4 of the way into a hole lower down in the fabric so the thread is gently pulled straight. Occasionally I will rearrange the needles to avoid potential tangles.

[Serinde]

Using fabric magnets to hold onto your needles is a useful and interesting refinement.

[Oriettait]

I am also trying hard to make friend with parking as it just make more sense when there are 20+ change in a 10x10 block of stitches.
I have yet to try multiple needles but I did find a way to deal with the hanging threads.. I have seen it done by someone online and it clicked on me.
I park my thread stitching them on the side or bottom of the area so they do not move, sorry poor english, probably the picture explain better:

[BizzieLizzie]

Yay!! Another convert!!

Another one crosses over to the dark side!

Or should that be the "park side"?

[NinjaBetty]

Oh how I wish I understood parking. I tried it once and my brain just couldn't understand it. I know my stitching would be much neater and my backs wouldn't be so darn silly looking but I guess I'm just not smart enough to figure it out. I am quite envious of those that can do it.

[NeedleAndFork]

Oh how I wish I understood parking. I tried it once and my brain just couldn't understand it. I know my stitching would be much neater and my backs wouldn't be so darn silly looking but I guess I'm just not smart enough to figure it out. I am quite envious of those that can do it.

What do you have trouble with? I'm sure that we can help explain it better if you tell us what is giving you trouble

[Allyn]

Using fabric magnets to hold onto your needles is a useful and interesting refinement.

That's what I'm using. . magnets. I have a bunch of those little disk magnets, some of which you can see in the picture, but I'm on the lookout for a thin magnet strip to park the needles on.

[bookknurd]

Can someone post backs of a work done parking vs. one done cross-country? I'm curious at what the difference looks like. I would post the cross-country one but I haven't done a big enough area on my HAEDs.

[NeedleAndFork]

Can someone post backs of a work done parking vs. one done cross-country? I'm curious at what the difference looks like. I would post the cross-country one but I haven't done a big enough area on my HAEDs.

It's just a small section, but you can see what the back of my piecev that I park on looks like at the top of this photo, where it is rolled up on my scroll rods..



I actually think it looks pretty cool - a somewhat impressionist version of the front

[Mystonique]

I have a question ... I've read with interest all the posts on parking ... I've done a few high confetti pieces but have never really understood the benefit of parking other than not having to rethread a needle with a new colour ...

But is it also true that you do it to avoid have to run your needle under existing stitches on the back (which is what I do when I cross country)?

Or maybe there are other benefits I haven't come up with?

[NeedleAndFork]

I have a question ... I've read with interest all the posts on parking ... I've done a few high confetti pieces but have never really understood the benefit of parking other than not having to rethread a needle with a new colour ...

But is it also true that you do it to avoid have to run your needle under existing stitches on the back (which is what I do when I cross country)?

Or maybe there are other benefits I haven't come up with?

When you park, you usually start at the top, and stitch in rows, working your way down. So as you complete a stitch on the first row, you park it lower down.. I carry as much as 20 rows down if needed. Beyond that I'd cut the thread. So you have a float on the back for the distance carried, but it is across unstitched area.. so as you stitch the following rows, that float gets stitched over an tacked down. This means that there end up being no loose floats on the back of the work.

Parking also makes it easy to start and stop your stitching from the front using a waste away knot (or just skip the knot and leave a small tail hanging in the front) since you can position the tail in a direction that you are sure to stitch over.. meaning that you don't have to keep flipping the work to start new threads. Ending them works the same way, just bring the thread up on the front in a position that will result in the float in the back being covered up as you continue to stitch. This makes life so much easier when working with a large frame. Also, it's nearly impossible to run your needle under the back of existing stitches to start and finish threads when you're stitching over 1 on 28 count.

[Allyn]

... But is it also true that you do it to avoid have to run your needle under existing stitches on the back (which is what I do when I cross country)? Or maybe there are other benefits I haven't come up with?

What NeedleandFork said is true about using the waste knots and then capturing the tail under subsequent stitches. I'm not parking in order to *get* that benefit, but it is a side perk that naturally occurs when parking and using the waste knots strategically. The stitches, IMHO, stay neater because they capture the tail when they're created and the tail is accommodated in the stitch's tension, as opposed to making the stitch with the appropriate tension and then coming back and jamming the needle underneath it to stuff more thread under it.

The benefit I was going for was the speed. I'm finding that I'm getting a lot more stitching done in the time I have available to me because I'm using the waste knots to start and finish my threads; I'm running multiple needles, so whatever symbol I come across, I can pop the stitch in real quick and keep going; I don't have to study the chart looking for where a particular symbol occurs (and then finding one more right after I anchored my tail and threaded the needle for the next color).

[Mystonique]

The stitches, IMHO, stay neater because they capture the tail when they're created and the tail is accommodated in the stitch's tension, as opposed to making the stitch with the appropriate tension and then coming back and jamming the needle underneath it to stuff more thread under it.

Single handedly with this sentence you have just made me decide to try it ... despite never having been interested before.

[Allyn]

The stitches, IMHO, stay neater because they capture the tail when they're created and the tail is accommodated in the stitch's tension, as opposed to making the stitch with the appropriate tension and then coming back and jamming the needle underneath it to stuff more thread under it.

Single handedly with this sentence you have just made me decide to try it ... despite never having been interested before.

And give us a report on how you make out with it.

Keep in mind however, that you can use waste knots when cross-country stitching to do the same thing. It just doesn't lend itself as well as when the knots are used with parking, IMO.

[Allyn]

I started in the upper left corner of the design and I'm working in an ever-widening expansion to the right and down. Using the waste knots to start and stop, I put the knot to the right of where I'm stitching, I stitch up to the knot and then clip it off.

My question is, how do I handle the knots when I get all the way to the right side of the design? I'm working on 18 ct aida, so it won't be too tragic anchoring the tail the 'usual' way by running it under a couple of stitches, but you folks that work on 28 ct over 1 don't have that luxury. How do you anchor the tails when you get to far the edge of the design?

[NeedleAndFork]

You can always start below where you're stitching, rather than to the right.. I do that sometimes depending on which part I'm stitching.

[Allyn]

You can always start below where you're stitching, rather than to the right.. I do that sometimes depending on which part I'm stitching.

And so what happens when you reach the bottom of the design? When working over 1 on a high count fabric, how do you anchor the tails at the end when there's no more stitching to capture them?