Lady with Unicorn Update

I know, I know — I posted an update on February 1, 2011. I’m only posting this one because it’s (almost) a milestone. I’m (almost) finished the second page of charts.

It’s harder to count the actual stitches now that I’m no longer working in blocks, but I estimate that I need to do another 200 stitches to finish this page. That means I’ve worked about 14,430 stitches, about 11%. Wow, I didn’t realise I’d reached the 10% milestone!

Miscellaneous data:
Purchased from Scarlet Quince
318 x 410 stitches (total: 130,380 stitches)
130 colours
18-count Aida (= 18 stitches/inch)
Started Nov. 23, 2009

Here’s the previous update photo, taken at the end of January:

The piece is going so much faster since I stopped “parking” my stitches. If you’re not sure what parking is, Scarlet Quince has a tutorial. I’m not saying parking doesn’t have its place in a needle-geek’s arsenal. It’s just that in this case it’s not necessary, probably because I’m working on 18-count Aida. If I were working on a much higher thread-count fabric (like Gary Schneider, who started Golden Kite’s “Picture Gallery, with Views of Modern Rome,” on 26-count linen, 1-thread over) I would probably need to park my threads. In my case, the results didn’t justify the extra work and needle-threading. And if you don’t have a clue what kind of needle-threading this technique (pun alert) entails, here’s a photo taken with the parked threads: