After many years of cross stitch, I have started using a technique that I think has benefited me in several ways. I hand sewed a graft on my cloth and makes it so much easier to follow along with my colors, which are very much tone on tone. I think this would also help in the use of many colors and keeping track on where I am in the pattern. Hope it will work for you.

Hi,
I've worked some projects with a lot of colors. One of the things I definitely do is make 2 copies of my original pattern and use those copies to keep my original clean. I can write notes or "yellow out" with highlighter the areas I have already stitched on one of my copies and the other I tape together to see the "whole picture" if the pattern has a lot of pages to it.
I look at the pattern (whether starting in the middle or in upper left corner to start the design) and see if there are a major number of stitches that have the same color symbol. I will then work this one color out to about 1-2 "blocks" (each block being 10 x 10); left to right, up and down to give me a start. I won't do more that 1-2 "blocks" at least to start, because of the risk of counting incorrectly and throwing my stitches off by 1 or more stitches. (I did it again just recently, which made me mad because I should've learned my lesson the first time it happened and I would NOT have had to pull stitched areas out)

One pattern I started in the upper left corner and took the major stitch symbol all the way across to the upper right corner of the very top row of the pattern. That worked out pretty well but I'm usually a person who starts stitching the pattern in the middle of the pattern.

Hi all. Bermuda good tip about starting off filling in the first 2 squares before moving on to make sure your count is accurate. I will definitely file this tip in my mental filing cabinet for future use. If I had 119 colors like this project requires, I would get one of the medium to large size plastic storage containers with the inserts inside and store my floss in numerical order. I normally store all my floss for projects in a quart size ziploc, but even then have to dig sometimes through all the floss to find the color I'm looking for. With 119 colors, I would no doubt be spinning my wheels with frustration trying to find the color I'm looking for, lol.

Yes,
I have 2 large projects and keep the plastic bobbins in numerical order in the small plastic divider cases with the title of the project labeled on the outside. Keep extra needles in each as well.

Let us know how your large project is going.

119 colors?! Let me out of here!! You will need one of those Darice boxes with 17 compartments.

I agree.... that is going to be quite a challenge! Right up my alley...... I'm one of those stitchers that also like to work on 28-count BLACK jobelan (probably related to some type of "temporary insanity"...

Now is the time to shop for DMC..
Was in Hancock's fabric store today.. Their DMC is .39 a skien & has a 30% off sale..
hope you have that store in your area..
happy stitching..

Like Bermuda says I make 2 copies of all my large patterns before I start working. One is for marking on and like Bermuda I tape my other one together and hang it on my design wall so I can see the overall pattern if I need to, I like projects that have lots of colors. The more the merrier. I keep all my DMC floss on plastic bobbins in plastic cases in a roll around set of drawers that is right by my stitching chair. I do not pull out floss for a specific project and keep it all together. I never have and have had no problems with the colors. I do my stitching working on one page at a time and doing all of the colors on that page. I also lap over to the next page with a row or two so I won't have a ridge.

syagel,

other than the fact that I pull all my colors to start, we seem to stitch in the same way.. I pull my floss because I stitch in the den, & my craft room is on the other end of the house, with no tv in that room.. lol
need noise to keep me on point..

happy stitching.

Regarding using one of the 2 copies of the original pattern to tape all the pages together so one can see the WHOLE picture..... learned from an experience I had some years ago. I ordered a chart to be
downloaded to me by a seller. I made copies of the chart (one to work on and one to tape together so I could see the whole picture). The chart had 16 pages, 4 pages across and 4 rows down.
I sat on my living room floor and matched the pages, by page number, starting in the upper left corner with page 1, then 2, etc.
Got all the pages placed correctly and stood up and looked at the whole picture of the pattern before I started taping. Good thing I did! The pattern looked like there was no form or anything I could identify in the pages to create the chart I ordered. Page 3 that was suppose to be part of the sky was in the bottom row. After playing with the pages, I discovered that the pattern had been downloaded to me whereas Page ONE was the LOWER Left corner of the fourth row, Page 2, 3, and 4 completed the BOTTOM row not the TOP row. A call to the seller confirmed that her cross stitch program printed the pattern starting from the bottom row up and numbered the pages accordingly. So, that is why I do NOT depend on page numbers to be in the correct order and why I make the extra copy to lay out on my living room floor to look at the pattern as a whole complete picture. Then if everything looks correct, I 'll tape it together.
I expect pattern pages to start in the UPPER LEFT as the beginning of the top row.
For this pattern, I renumbered the pages to start at the upper left corner and going across, checked the pattern by standing up and making out the design and it was correct, Then I taped it all together...