Having a large area to fill can get very tedious and boring. You can always go the distraction route, by putting a movie on or playing an audio book. Audio books don’t work for me, I find them annoying. Movies are fine, but they either need to be ones you have seen 5,000 times and pretty much know by heart, or a bad movie that won’t engage your attention much. A good movie you don’t know or know well will slow you way down. If I do movies, I do the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies. They basically provide background distraction, and are a good way to time yourself, as each movie is around 80 minutes. There are other little things you can do, even if you are working to a pattern. If there’s a large area, break it up with various shapes. By the time you’re done, you’ll have a nice, subtle pattern, which is especially nice in large areas done in one colour. You can also take a couple of seconds to randomly doodle, which gives you a goal (one doodle covered, two doodles covered, etc.) and can make the stitching area seem less formidable.
Current Hours: 1,029. Skeins Used: 149. Click for full size.
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That is looking great!
Know what you mean about the boredom factor. I have to spend an inordinate amount of time counting horsehair. I listen to podcasts to help the tedium and keep myself on the job. Listening to movies would be fun, but I personally am too tempted to look at the screen for that to work for me!
Kestrel:
Yep, and it could be disastrous to keeping count, too. I haven’t done movies for a while, but when I do, it’s always the old Holmes movies, I know them forwards and backwards, and can just play scenes in my head when I hear the lines. They’re kind of like music at this point, I float in and out of being conscious of them. As a result, I only look up when it’s a favourite movie moment.
I listen to podcasts or silly TV series I’ve already seen when I’m crocheting. It definitely needs to stay in the background. I find music distracting because I will start singing or counting the beat instead of the stitches. It’s really interesting to see and read about other people’s creative process. I appreciate you sharing yours, Caine, thanks!
Thanks right back, Stellatree! Now music, I can do. That’s my everyday, when the playlist starts, it’s time to work. The faster the beat, the faster I stitch. :D
The mildly deranged penguin says the proper way to deal with boredom — besides eating some moar cheese — is to change things so it’s not boring with lots of screams. So, e.g., do Leonardo da Quirm, invent an Automatic Mill for Background in Embroidery Powered by Rats Not Inside Puppets, and alter it during construction to collect honey from hives and make toast because you got a bit peckish.