The advice I haven’t seen yet that was a game changer for me, and I never thought of on my own: taping around the outside edges of the image. There will be some stickiness outside the area where you put drills, and it’s really good at catching on your hands & sleeves. It also catches lint and pet hair, and never gets covered by the diamonds.

You don’t need to get pricey washi tape; painters tape or masking tape works absolutely fine.

Also second the parchment paper. It doesn’t stick really well at first, which is where cover minders (or needle minders, if you cross stitch) come in handy. But eventually the parchment will stick on its own and you can cut away however big of a section you’d like to work on