Miss Clawful's Cross-Stitch Projects

[Ally]

Wow...sure as hell not posting my projects! That is amazing!

[Krysta]

That is so much more detail than I ever plan to write down, it's amazing. I usually go like 'oh this project took about 3 months or so,' give or take a few days.' they look nice too.
Also I tend to stitch while watching tv, so sometimes a good part is on and I stop stitching for a while so I don't miss anything. So counting minutes is not accurate anyway, and too much of a hassle. I applaude you.

[Miss Clawful]

Why not Ally? Can't be that bad for you to not want to show them off. Heck, even mine aren't masterpieces (I even posted all of my embarrassing backsides), I still have a lot to learn.

I started logging down detailed time (rounded to the nearest 5 minute mark) when I started on my Castlevania project because I was curious of exactly (or close to it) how long it took to do each cross-stitch piece, not an estimate uh, I think it took me about this many hours to do. I sit in front of my laptop because my pattern is there in the Paint program, right before my first X I log in the time in Notepad, and the moment I stop to take a break I log in the stop time and what I got done. If I'm out I just look at the time and try to remember when I started and stopped. Of coarse I don't count preparations, and minus out time spend on fixing mistakes, just keeping track of stitching time. I'm not a big tv person, if my mom is watching something then I'll glance over once in a while otherwise I just listen to it while stitching. If I'm at home by myself I never watch tv, sometimes I stitch in silence, sometimes I may play some music, but for the most really when cross-stitching have to stay focused, distractions tend to cause mistakes, such as miscounting.

[starrley]

I can't even begin to tell you how much I love the Gun-Nac one. (And it made it to the Sunday Roundup on the blog!)

[Miss Clawful]

Thank you. Actually stretch this one out and mounted it onto some foam board yesterday. Not a first, did it a month ago, but did such a terrible job that I had to redo it. Looks much better now. Still can see the deep creases (and I pulled it really tight), but not so badly. Still can't do a thing about the pencil marks though showing through the sky, not without removing it to try to erase it more or redo the cross-stitch piece completely (and ain't going to do that). My mom says it isn't so bad, she don't even notice it (she loves this cross-stitch piece, still one of her favorites), but I do (bugs the hell out of me). While I like it, because of the mistakes I made I think of it as a reminder to not ever make those mistakes again, especially for big projects like that again. Oh, and noticed one more flaw (always do), I missed crossing one of the light blue Xs near the upper laser, oops, wonder how that happened, oh well, hardly noticable unless you, like myself, are looking for flaws. I'm my own worst critic, every single thing I do I find faults in, which is what keeps me striving for better.

See first post for pic of Gun-Nac project.

[Stitchmond]

I am most impressed by your color selection. All too often, I see stitched video game sprites with the wrong colors.

Often, people leave it up to PC Stitch and KG Chart to assign color values to a sprite's palette, and I find that this doesn't work.

I am not satisfied until I hand-select the correct colors myself and if a color is even slightly wrong, I rip the floss out and try again.

What do you do to choose your colors?

[Miss Clawful]

I eyeball it. Look each color over very carefully, search through all of my floss til I find some possible matches, then compare and test out which one(s) I think would look best, closest to the on-screen sprite colors. I tried a couple of those stitch programs a few times, but results were terrible, nor were the programs easy to use, not for me, so I stick to editing and viewing them in the MS Paint program, blow 'em large enough to see and work from that. Some colors are easy to pick, others take a long time, with me testing them by stitching a little bit, see how they look with the other colors chosen, sometimes having to tear them back out again and try with another choice. One day I hope to have the perfect color choices where I don't have to spend so much time with searching, they'll all be right there, the perfect colors to match any NES sprite. In due time. Though I have found that sometimes what works for one cross-stitched character, even though the same exact color should be used on another character as well that sometimes it doesn't work, doesn't quite look right so I end up having to use another choice to make it look right to my eyes.

[ami-lynn]

Very impressive profile there Miss Clawful. Creating patterns by eye, now that is cool.

[Miss Clawful]

Done several more cross-stitchings a while ago, just wanted to wait til I got them all done before posting, but being as I took a rest from it for a bit (was playing Double Dragon for the NES for a low score contest), figured it may be a while before I get the rest of the bosses done, so may was well post what I have gotten done so far. Gotta get back to these soon, try to finish them up so I can start on something else. Such as the really big Shatterhand piece I want to do.

Shatterhand - Area A boss - Balzire

Colors used (DMC):
------------------
White, Medium Mahogany (#301), Dark Rosewood (#3857); Medium Red (#304), Very Light Mahogany (#402), Ultra Very Light Tan (#739)

Material used:
--------------
Black Aida (14ct) cut to 5"x7"

Date Progress Log:
------------------
2/7/2012-2/8/2012

10:45pm-12:30am - got white and golden brown on lower half (legs and hips) done

2/8/2012

1:10am-2:15am - got white and golden brown on top half (shoulders, arm, head and gun) done

(darn, golden brown didn't work well with the rosewood color I just started, should've tested them together first, blended in too much, had to remove it all, spent all morning trying to find the right color choice, it shouldn't have taken this long, in the meantime will stitch in the rosewood then figure out the other color afterwards)

2/8/2012-2/9/2012

11:00pm-1:45am - got all d. rosewood done

2:00am-3:20am - got all m. mahogany color done, Balzire finished (finally), all I've left to do is the gunshot blast

2/9/2012

1:45pm-2:40pm - got fireball done, Balzire project complete

total time for completion = 490 minutes (8 hours 10 minutes)



===

Shatterhand - Area B boss - Pogoborg (supposed to be 2 of them like the twin mummies in Castlevania, but only cross-stitching one of them)

Colors used (DMC):
------------------
White, Very Light Mahogany (#402), Dark Rosewood (#3857); Light Blue (#813)

Material used:
--------------
Black Aida (14ct) cut to 5"x7"

Date Progress Log:
------------------
2/9/2012-2/10/2012

11:50pm-1:40am - got all d. rosewood outline done

2/10/2012

2:20am-3:05am - got all white done on Pogoborg

3:10am-3:45am - got light mahogany on head, arm and shoulder done

6:10am-6:20am - got torso done

2:55pm-3:30pm - got foot, shin and spring coil done

4:15pm-4:35pm - got leg done, Pogoborg finished

4:40pm-5:10pm - got plasma blast done, Pogoborg project complete

total time for completion = 285 minutes (4 hours 45 minutes)



===

Shatterhand - Area C boss - Cyborg Ape

Colors used (DMC):
------------------
Ultra Very Light Tan (#739), Medium Salmon (#3712), Dark Rosewood (#3857); Light Blue (#813), White, Black

Material used:
--------------
Black Aida (14ct) cut to 5"x7"

Date Progress Log:
------------------
2/11/2012

2:20am-4:10am - got blue of 3 energy sparks done

3:40pm-3:55pm and 9:30pm-9:45pm - got rosewood color done on lower leg

2/12/2012

1:05am-3:20am - got all rosewood outline done on Cyborg Ape

2/13/2012

12:05am-1:10am - got light tan color done

4:50am-5:55am - got m. salmon color done on outstretched arm, head and torso

1:30pm-2:20pm - got bent arm done and lower leg

3:55pm-4:25pm - finished Cyborg Ape

6:05pm-6:50pm - got white done on energy sparks

7:10pm-8:00pm - got black done inside of energy sparks, Cyborg Ape project complete

total time for completion = 570 minutes (9 hours 30 minutes)

[heliumkidd]

that is quite a collection you got some of my favorites in contra, kid icarus, and metroid
and the data logging is very impressive