Just how much faster is tent stitch...

[richardandtracy]

than cross stitch?

I have just been socked in the face by looking at my latest project. I'm planning on doing it on 28 count, 2 over 1 tent stitch, but the full significance of the 28 count has only hit me in the last 10 minutes. It means each 100% filled 77 x 98 stitch page of the plan will be only 2.75" x 3.5" on the fabric. When fully stitching that sort of page size in the past with cross stitch on 14ct Aida, it's taken 2 months or so..
Progress will seem to be woeful unless tent stitch is much, much faster!

The project is 44060 stitches on a 450 x 312 stitch area {31% coverage, using the black fabric as a key colour component}, which with 14ct aida would be approaching a year. It would be nice to hear what duration you'd expect such a size 28ct project to take, so I can get an estimate on how long this is likely to take me.

Regards,

Richard.

[rcperryls]

I'm not good at estimating time because each of us is so different in speed and each design is so different in number of colors, how much confetti etc. I do know that for me tent stitching is much faster. To say twice as fast is difficult to know. I stitch cross country and think that tent stitching gives me more flexibility in how I plan my stitches "path" and I think speeds it up a bit. For those who park, I expect that tent stitching is even faster. I stitched an HAED mini-Amethyst for my sister's birthday several years ago. It is 195w x 292h and like most HAEDs covers the entire fabric. Making this my only project it took me about 4 months to stitch. It was my first time tenting and I stitched it on 25 ct fabric since it was before I had my magnilight and both the gridding and the stitching on 28ct was too much for my eyes. All my HAEDs since then are tent stitched on 28 ct. I am a fairly slow stitcher I think so it works for me.

Carole

[richardandtracy]

Thanks Carole, you have been slightly re-assuring.
The picture has a maximum of 43 colours in a 10 x 10 square, with an average of 9.0, so from the average confetti level it's somewhat less daunting than my last Luis Royo project (9.4 average), though the peak is more than twice as bad...

Regards,

Richard

[Allyn]

I'd like to say it's twice as fast. Theoretically, it seems it like should be. The count of the fabric doesn't really matter since a stitch is a stitch. You make the same motions whether you're working on 14 ct over 1 or 28 ct over 1; but when tenting, the same motions make more stitches. (Needle up, needle down, needle up, needle down = one stitch on 14 ct, full cross over 1 versus needle up, needle down, needle up, needle down = two stitches on 28 ct, tent over 1.)

I'll tell you how I handle my time estimations. I take the total number of stitches and divide by 7000 (I know I average about 7000 stitches a month) to estimate how many months a project might take me for full crosses. If I'm doing tent stitches, I divide by 10,000. The reason I don't divide by 14,000 for tenting is that I don't do it as much and it changes my attack strategies, so even though it's faster, it slows me down a little. I think my 10,000 stitches a month estimate is a little low, but I still don't think I do 14,000 -- so maybe 12,000?. My next project will be tenting, so I'll be able to update my time estimation calculation once I get into it, but I'll be working on my current project for at least another five months.

Going by my current calculations, your project would take me about 4 months tenting. Interestingly enough, the number of stitches in your project is almost exactly what I've already done on my WiP (44,060 vs 44,050) and it took me about 6 months to reach that point doing full crosses.

[richardandtracy]

Thanks Allyn.
The progress info on Vanita's still life indicates that you're about twice as fast as I am on full crosses, so presumably will be on tent stitches too. That's the info I was looking for - so this could well be an 8-9 month project, which isn't quite as bad as I had feared.

Regards,

Richard.

[Ruthi]

Well just looking at this as a mathematical exercise, its not going to be twice as fast because the amount of time you spend starting and finishing, looking at your chart and deciding where to place stitches, and drinking coffee will all remain unchanged. My guess would be that you will save about 30% of the time, but it really is a guess.

HOWEVER I would not underestimate the effect of stitching on black will have. It is indeed more difficult, no matter how good your light, and the fine count will exaggerate the difficulty.

Just assume its a year, and hopefully you will be pleasantly surprised when you finish by Easter/Summer or whenever! Remember that there is finite wall space in your home, so quick finishes are not necessarily a good thing!

[richardandtracy]

... Remember that there is finite wall space in your home, so quick finishes are not necessarily a good thing!

We have a house worth of pictures in our under stairs cupboard already...
Our house is a Victorian house with picture rails, making replacement and juggling of pictures quite easy, so we do. Every 6-9 months we have a move around, take some out of store, put others in etc. We do not, however, move the furniture about (like some people we know), so this seems a nice way of mixing things up.
One Victorian idea we've not taken up (yet) is double height hanging of pictures, where one picture hangs below another. It's an idea I'm not too keen on, but may have its uses in the stair well.

... I would not underestimate the effect of stitching on black ...

Boy, don't I know.. 3 of my 6 projects have been on black, and it's so much easier on the lighter colours. The times I guestimated have been assuming on black rather than lighter colours.

Regards,

Richard.

[Allyn]

Since this thread was posted, I've been thinking about it. It's been a while since I tented. I have the fabric for my next project, and I kept looking at it wondering how much faster the tent stitches would be on it. A few nights ago, I decided to go ahead and load the fabric into a frame and put it on a stand. In a single session, when I would have expected to do between 350 and 400 stitches of full crosses (moderate to heavy confetti with blended threads), I did 2000 stitches (yes, two thousand) tented over one, light to no confetti in solid colors. The lack of confetti is definitely a factor, but I was still really surprised at how many stitches I did. After two sessions, I had a whole page's worth of stitching done. (I feel like I'm stitching at Vanessa-speed.) What I did so far is in the sky. Once I get down into the confetti-heavy areas, it will be more telling; but so far, I'm quite pleased with the speed of tenting. I ran into a roadblock since I don't have all the colors, so I had to put that aside and go back to Vanitas.

[Serinde]

Well just looking at this as a mathematical exercise, its not going to be twice as fast because the amount of time you spend starting and finishing, looking at your chart and deciding where to place stitches, and drinking coffee will all remain unchanged.

One must always include the important criteria for a true comparison!

[richardandtracy]

I have started.
OK, I am not terribly well at the moment (a tummy bug), but my speed is utterly woeful. Approaching 8 stitches an hour. I am getting myself in a terrible muddle trying to park so many colours. There seems enough space to go to cross country stitching until I get settled in with the fabric, colour and number of colours.
The plan page I'm on has 56 colours in 358 stitches and over 20 colours have 1 or 2 stitches. It feels an order of magnitude more difficult than anything else I have ever tried. I hope I'm up to it...

Regards

Richard

[Allyn]

I am sorry you're not feeling well.

If parking is giving you problems on top of the other factors, cross-country until you feel more comfortable.