Sprite Stitch Stitch-a-Long Update 8

Posted on August 10, 2015 by Clarington

Next up in my Sprite Stitch stitch-a-long is Yoshi’s Island. This one is yet another blackberrybear creation. She and I clearly have the same taste in games since I’ll be stitching a few more of her creations before my stitch-a-long project is over!

The original pattern (which you can find over on Sprite Stitch) used pastel colours, but I changed them to match the image on the front of the Yoshi’s Island DS game, since it’s the only one I’ve played. To be honest, I only played a bit of this game. I didn’t dislike it, I just get easily distracted by new games so games often don’t hold my attention for very long unless they are truly exceptional. I simply thought that baby Mario was too cute not to stitch and the character shot makes for a nice contrast to the many squares that use a more traditional, multiple-motif, sampler style.

Next up is a seriously fantastic Minesweeper square, so be on the lookout.

Sprite Stitch Charity Quilt 2015

Posted on July 20, 2015July 20, 2015 by Clarington

Every year the great group over at Sprite Stitch cross stitch scenes from their favourite video games to create a one of a kind quilt to raise money for Child’s Play.

This is the first year that I’ve been able to contribute. Here is my finished square – a scene from Adventures of Lolo 3.

So many great folks contribute to the quilt each year that there are typically enough squares to create more than one quilt. One of the quilts always goes to the Penny Arcade Child’s Play Dinner and Auction, while the second quilt is typically sold in a way that allows more people the opportunity to win it. The second quilt created last year is being raffled right now. See pictures of the quilt and buy your tickets at RaffleRiver.com. Tickets are $3 each or 5 for $10 and the draw will occur on August 8.

The time to contribute squares for this year’s quilt is almost up, but if you’re a cross stitcher, keep a look out for work on next year’s quilt to start. The squares are a lot of fun to stitch and help support a great cause.

Sprite Stitch Stitch-a-Long Update 7

Posted on July 16, 2015July 16, 2015 by Clarington

Square number 7 in my Sprite Stitch stitch-a-long project is another blackberrybear creation, and likely requires no introduction. At least if it does, you definitely weren’t a child of the 80s.

I sucked at Duck Hunt. I mean absolutely sucked. I saw a lot of the laughing dog. Stupid dog. The only way I could even attempt to play the game was to exploit the trick where you hold the gun with the tip only an inch or so from your TV screen to mess with the light sensor. But it makes for an adorable cross stitch square!

Sprite Stitch Stitch-a-Long Update 6

Posted on July 7, 2015July 7, 2015 by Clarington

Next up in my Sprite Stitch stitch-a-long project is a square from Harvest Moon. This one was designed by blackberrybear.

My first introduction to the Harvest Moon series was Harvest Moon DS for (obviously) the Nintendo DS. It’s probably a good thing that my DS didn’t track my playtime, as I’m guessing my total hours clocked into this game rivals what I put into Skyrim. I simply couldn’t put the silly thing down. Seriously, I even kept my DS by my bed so I could tend to my farm when I woke up in the middle of the night. Who knew a farming sim could have that kind of draw? Even my Mom (whose previous gaming experience was basically limited to Tetris) loved the heck out of Harvest Moon. I’ve played other Harvest Moon games since then (as well as a couple of the Rune Factory games) but none of them have had quite the same charm as Harvest Moon DS.

While the artwork for this particular square is from the original Harvest Moon for the SNES (which I never played), it’s still Harvest Moon. So how could I not stitch it?

Sprite Stitch Stitch-a-Long Week 4

Posted on June 1, 2015June 6, 2015 by Clarington

For the final week of the Sprite Stitch stitch-a-long we were able to choose our favourite from the submitted designs to stitch. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is hands down one of my all time favourite video games. It is second only to World of Warcraft for the number of hours it has sucked from my life – and it was worth every one of them. So I knew my final square would have to be one of the two great Skyrim designs that were submitted to the stitch-a-long.

Here are the Skyrim patterns I had to choose from:

The first was created by Pyper and provides room to experiment with some blackwork. The second was created by BooChocoBoom and is hard to resist if you have a soft spot for the Thieves’ Guild.

I loved the idea of trying my hand at some blackwork and originally started into that pattern. However, it became apparent that within the context of my entire project the blackwork just didn’t fit in and made this pattern stand out heavily from the rest. So I pulled out the stitches and opted to commemorate the Theives’ Guild instead.

Here’s the final square:

I’m not very happy with how the yellow for Devlin’s goatee blends in with the rest of his face. I literally tried eight different shades of yellow and didn’t like any of them. I may still pull it out and make it brown instead. It wouldn’t be true to the game, but at least it would be noticeable that way. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Here’s my official finished sampler:

Although the official stitch-a-long is over, I am still planning to stitch another twelve squares for display in a multi-frame, so be sure to watch for more updates. You can also check out the rest of the stitch-a-long group’s progress over on Sprite Stitch.

Sprite Stitch Stitch-a-Long Week 3

Posted on May 21, 2015May 23, 2015 by Clarington

So I’ve chickened out and switched from 14ct aida to 16ct for my Sprite Stitch Stitch-a-Long project. If you recall from my first post the stitch-a-long consists of four video game themed squares, but I’m planning to extend my sampler with a bunch more of the submitted patterns for display in a 16 picture multi-frame. When I tried to align the couple of squares I had stitched on 14ct fabric into the frame, it became apparent that due to the bars on the frame not being perfectly straight I had zero wiggle room for some of the squares. Meaning if my blocking isn’t completely perfect I’ll be in danger of losing some rows of stitching under the cross bars. I don’t have a lot of faith in my blocking skills so a higher count fabric will give me a little more room for error.

Here’s the new fabric gridded off before I started stitching:

You can see that there’s a lot more space between where the stitched blocks will be (marked with the pink lines) and the bars on the frame. It’s a little more space than I would have liked but hopefully it will still look pretty good.

I started stitching the new fabric with the week three square – a Super Mario Bros 3 motif designed by SofaraStarfyre.

Here’s the finished result:

There’s only one more official week to go, but there are still plenty of people just getting started, so head over to Sprite Stitch to join in on the fun!

Sprite Stitch Stitch-a-Long Week 2

Posted on May 11, 2015May 11, 2015 by Clarington

This second square for the Sprite Stitch SAL is from Pikmin 2 and was designed by katdun.

It’s stitched on 14 count aida with two strands of floss.

I’ve never played a Pikmin game but they look pretty cute. I may have to search for a copy of Pikmin or Pikmin2 and brush the dust off the Wii…

I haven’t decided yet whether or not I will fill in the background on the squares. I think this one would look great with the background filled in, but I don’t want to do that much stitching until I’m sure this project will work in the frame I picked out. Once I’ve stitched a few more squares I should have a better idea whether I think this will work or if I’ll need to restart with a smaller count of fabric. It’s all about the trial and error!

Sprite Stitch Stitch-a-Long Week 1

Posted on May 9, 2015May 23, 2015 by Clarington

I’ve been an avid lurker on the Sprite Stitch forum for a couple of years now. It’s an incredibly talented and supportive community focused primarily on cross stitching video game images. My favourite part of the forum is the challenges which includes monthly competitions, a yearly stitched quilt created for charity, swaps, and currently a stitch-a-long.

The stitch-a-long started in April with the creation of 52 patterns by forum members, followed by a vote for the favourites. From the favourites, a new pattern is being randomly selected each week for everyone to stitch. After four weeks of stitching we’ll each have a cute sampler made up of four video game themed squares.

The patterns submitted are so incredible that I really want to stitch more than four of them. I started by searching for a frame since I knew this would impact the size of fabric I would use for the squares. I was picturing a frame that would hold nine or so squares, but I ended up with this great Umbra frame instead:

Sixteen squares is a bit more ambitious than I originally intended, but I’m pretty exciting about it. I bought my frame from Blacks but it’s readily available in many places including Amazon.

Each square in the grid is 3 3/4 x 3 3/4 inches. The pattens I will be stitching are each 50 x 50 squares, so I decided to go with 14 count aida. It’s a bit of a risk since it makes each finished square just over 3 1/2 inches, meaning there isn’t a lot of wiggle-room in the spacing. But if it works I think it will look fantastic.

I started by griding off my fabric based on where the section bars on the frame sit, and then I began stitching:

(I was too eager to start stitching to get a pic first, so the first square is already stitched).

The first square is a scene from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (one of my all-time favourite Zelda games) designed by blackberrybear. Anyone who has played the game will likely know how mean, yet hilarious, it was to hit a cucco until Link was attacked, and blackberrybear has perfectly captured that feeling in cross stitch.

Here’s the original image:

And my finished square:

It’s stitched with two strands of floss on 14-count aida.

Be sure to check out Sprite Stitch for the full pattern.