Had me in stitches

I have been cross stitching for as long as I can remember.

I think I must have been around 5 or so when my Mum first taught me how to cross stitch. In fact, she still has a Mother's Day card from around that time which was my first attempt at stitching alone. I started out making things up (a house, a tree, a fairisle-style pattern). Later, I moved onto doing counted cross stitches (usually of cats). All the while my Mum and sister were embarking on much larger projects - in fact, my Mum was working on a Flower Fairy cross stitch around 1998 and it still hasn't been completed, mainly due to a lack of time and matching threads.

I lost interest after that.

Until last year...

In the transition of being a 12-year-old to being a 23-year-old, I had discovered my love for pixel art (sparked by my constant nostaliga for the video games of my childhood) and began to realise how easily pixel art could be translated into cross stitch patterns (and perler bead patterns!). Combined with the postings of the very talented people at /r/CrossStitch, I had a sudden spark of inspiration and cross stitch made it way back into occupying my spare time. As it turns out, geekiness and sewing go hand-in-hand rather well.

Please note I will link any patterns that I have used as best as I can, but unfortunately some of them seem to have been lost in the ether.

LeChuck - Secret of Monkey Island 

Growing up with an older brother and sister, I spent a fair portion of my time doing whatever they wanted to do. Fortunately, this usually involved playing video games. During the days of the Amiga, a lot of the time was dedicated to LucasArts point-and-click adventure games. This cross stitch was based on the sprite of the Zombie Pirate LeChuck from the very first MI game, and followed a pattern posted to Reddit (I tweaked the colours slightly to match the in-game look a bit better). 

The quote was taken from the third MI, and the font is based on the actual in-game font of the earlier installments. This was very much done by-eye, as there were not patterns available.

This is one of my favourite pieces that I have finished so far, and I would love to stitch an full scene from one of the games. I'm planning on doing this one at some point in the very near future.

Scott Pilgrim & Ramona Flowers

This one was done on a very scrappy piece of canvas, so not a lot has become of it, unfortunately. I was obsessed with the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels up until the film came out (which all felt completely wrong to me). One positive of the film coming out was the gorgeous Paul Robertson pixel art for the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World game. These guys were based directly on Paul's sprites and were done by-eye (without a pattern). 

Various Pokemon characters

Like any self-respecting 90's child, I was involved with the Pokemon craze (when it was a craze). Recently, I watched through the entire first series of the Pokemon anime and was inspired to produce some cross stitches based on the game sprites.

Each of these were based on cross stitch patterns from across the Internet. The Bulbasaur was done with much a much higher-count Aida cloth, which I really struggled with. 
The Koffing and Team Rocket (follow links for patterns) were done on plastic canvas and they are some of my favourites. I made the Koffing into a brooch (with matching Pokeball) and regularly wear it out! I'm still working on the Gym badges, but I've pretty much lost my enthusiasm for the idea now.

Mordecai and Rigby - Regular Show

My other half was asking for me to make him a Regular Show cross stitch for a very long time. Initially I attempted to create something that was very close to the actual style of the show, but it proved to be a bit too difficult. So I went for a much more simple design.

This design was based on an pattern from Etsy, and it is currently sat on a shelf in our kitchen.

Claptrap - Borderlands

This was another request from Louis. He had got back into Borderlands and decided that a Claptrap piece - with the text 'Greetings Travellers' would be good to hang on the door to our flat.

This piece followed another Etsy pattern, but the text was made with a cross stitch font generator.

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I'd love to see your cross stitch creations! Please feel free to share a link to any that you are proud of!

The Struggles of Blogging

Upon hearing people speak about 'blogging' it's very difficult not to conjure up the typical image of girls in their early 20s raving about the 'Better Than Sex' mascara and the Anastasia Brow Dip. The same girls who describe themselves as 'full-time bloggers' and use outdated memes on their Twitter feed.The girls who are gifted endless freebies (and, subsequently, get caught selling said freebies).

Am I jealous? Of course I am.

Who wouldn't want to spend their days on the internet writing about things they love? I certainly would.

My adventures into the world of blogging began in 2009 during my gap year. I was fresh out of school, and began working at home doing data input for a local civil engineering company. As with any mindless job, the temptation to stray elsewhere whilst online proved to be too much and I would often find myself scouring the internet for beauty and fashion blogs and absorbing the content like a sponge.

These girls were like me. They were everything I wanted to be.

It didn't take long for me to set up my own blog (which is sadly long gone now!). I would post photos of my outfits, taken in my bedroom and write general nonsense about how I was 'letting my legs out in March' and how I would soon to be embarking on a 'new style adventure'. I would become incredibly frustrated that no one seemed to be interested (bar the occassional unenthused self-promoting comment of 'Great look. Come and check out my blog!'). Obviously now it is all too obvious why no-one was interested, but a younger and more naïve me became incredibly disheartened with the whole thing - enough to give it up completely.

Looking back, I can see that I was very much focused on numbers (or 'pretend internet points', as I like to call them). Views, comments, everything. If I didn't hit a certain number of views or comments, I'd consider deleting the post...

But I've come to realise... None of this matters. Blogging shouldn't be about numbers or trying to hit the 'big-time' or trying to score freebies. It should be about doing it for the sheer enjoyment of it all.

I personally find the process of blogging quite a cathartic experience, and I enjoy speaking to strangers online about things we share an interest in. As such, I'm going to start again - and try not be demoralised when I realise I don't have 8 million subscribers. Crafts, music, style. I will simply be posting about things I enjoy, and I hope you will find my posts of some interest.

Welcome to my blog. Stay tuned.