Classic Video Games as Needlework

Shortly after I got married we bought and Atari. Being two geeks, we played it — a lot. Enough so that when we got rid of it, we swore we’d never buy another system. A promise we have kept so far.

But recently my kids have been talking about classic video games and how fun they are. and then we saw WALL-E on MOnday night and it had Pong in it.

All of this has gotten me nostalgic for those wonderfully pixelated sprites in classic video games. They’d make great little needlepoint. Sure enough, someone has a tutorial on how to make your own.

Go visit it and spend some time exploring her site, it’s tons of fun. And then go make a millipede for yourself.

Finding the Perfect Background

Picking backgrounds can be one of the most challenging aspects of needlepoint. I’ve been doing needlepoint so long (almost 40 years) that I can usually see the background early on in planning the piece.

But I ran into a wall over the weekend on the Cooper Oaks piece “It’s so Nice When the Prince Remembers.” As you can see from the pictures, I’m making nice progress on it.

From the beginning I had the idea to make the background look kind of like wallpaper. One of my favorite techniques for doing this is Needlepoint Damask, a tent stitch technique which uses two threads of the same color & different textures to make something which looks like damask fabric.

It’s always worked beautifully in the past, but it isn’t working here. You can hardly see the metallic fleur de lis. I think I know what happened. The metallic I used (from Kreinik’s Gourmet Collection) is rather flat for a metallic. The other thread, Silk & Ivory, has a lot of life to it because of the silk. There just isn’t enough texture to make it work.

So I’m ripping it out and looking for a new background. Often a more textured stitch will work. But not here, a real contrast between the foreground and background is needed. And the foreground has lots of texture.

So what about a larger stitch? That might work, but it has to be easy to compensate because of the lettering and hair. I am doing Basketweave around the hair, but I want it to fit in.

In those considerations, the wallpaper idea has been lost. But it’s still a good one. So I need a background which will look like wallpaper, not have too much texture, and have longer stitches (but not too long).

Stripes!

Stripes of all kinds make outstanding backgrounds. They can be subtle or bold, scale easily, and work well in the background because we often see stripes in real life, so the brain accepts this as a background.

Lots of stitches can work as stripes and I’ve got two in mind, Diagonal Beaty and Diaper. I like the Beaty idea best because it’s a bit larger and, I think, will work better with the scale. Also Diaper has Mosaic Stitches in it and I’m already using those on the chair.

You can see a bit of the Beaty along the bottom.

I’ll keep you posted.

Doodle Needlepoint - Stitchlady’s Project

Stitchlady took up Jocelyn’s idea for doodle needlepoint and did her own. The results, with lots of pictures, are now posted on her blog.

It’s a neat idea for doodling. She outlined each area and then filled it in with different threads and stitches, looking for balance and texture.

Jocelyn’s was done in Tent Stitch and is very geometric. Stitchlady’s has a landscape feel about it and is on a much larger scale.

Both are lots of fun. I’ve been thinking about this and looking for ideas with a similar feel if you are uncomfortable with doing something freeform. At our local bookstore I saw book on decorating which had some great needlepoint ideas along this line.

This bears lots of similarities to my Scrap Bag Needlepoint technique and is tons of fun to do.
I’m thinking of making one or two to cover an old pillow and a footstool to go in the (keep praying for it) new house.
Here’s how to do it.

1. Find a shape you like and outline this shape along your entire canvas in a neutral color (the pillow I saw used a honey color).

2. Deciding about color is the most important step here. You can just pick color at random. Or you can restrict the colors you use to a particular range, color, or tonal value. Do this before you start stitching and put the colors you will be using aside.

3. Now go to your stash and start filling the shapes. Pick a color at random from your pile. Fill in a shape, using either Tent Stitch or a textured stitch. But use only one stitch.

4. If you have more of the thread, fill in some more shapes, but do not make two shapes next to each other the same thread.

5. Continue to do this until the whole area you outlined is filled.

With luck, you’ve used up some of your stash and made something unique.

Giveaway Update — Cross Stitch Still Available

The needlepoint charts are all gone, but the cross stitch charts are available.

Please email me at napaneedlepoint @ gmail.com (remove the spaces) with your name and postal address to get them. I’ll take the first four I get. US addresses only.

I’m Cleaning & You Benefit!

I’m cleaning out my studio, prepartory to moving it first to another room and then to another house (keep the sale of this and the purchase of the new one in your prayers), and you reap the benefit of my latest foray.

I found 4 sets of Rainbow Gallery cross stitch freebie charts and 8 lovely Gemstone charts by Catherine Colman which were done from Kreinik in 2001.

I’d like to pass these along to you.

So the first four people who ask for the cross stitch charts and the first eight people who ask for the needlepoint charts will get them.

To claim the prizes, you must send me a email (napaneedlepoint @ gmail.com - remove the spaces) and give me your name and mailing address and which you would like.

I’ll make another post when the giveaway is closed.

Everything will be sent out next week.

Good Luck!