quick update on my Buu image

Hello everyone, ive not done much over the last few weeks but thats mainly because i had a week off work and didnt touch it.

well this is how far ive got upto today:

macro shot to see abit more of the colours used:

This is just four colours so far and they really are starting to work well together =)

i want to finish this by the end of the month but im not sure on one or two of  the others colours, so i guess its off the the shop to take a look at other shades.

I will post again once ive done more but until then keep messaging/ commenting on here and will always try my hardest to reply and chat away =)

bye colin

 

Oh on a side note, would any of you want patterns if i made them available?   Im thinking of making a etsy shop with patterns of all the images i made over the last 2 years but only if people want them.

let me know what you think.

 

just started a new dragon ball z stitch.

Hi all =)

I’ve just started a new dragonball z stitch. It is another enemy in the manga/ anime show.

These are almost all the colours that im going to use to make it with:

There are 13 in total (yep i know there are only 12 in the picture but the one missing is white.

When i made the pattern i did it on a white background and forgot i needed it when sorting out the colours! (fail) hahaha =)

Well im a few hours into the picture now and having a quick break to have a tea and sort out some form of food to eat, so check it out and tell me what you think so far:

Also feel free to subscribe by entering your email address in the subscribe box so you can see more updates on this picture as i post them. Well bye for now =)

Dragonball Freeza bust

hello everyone =)

Ive had one of those rare things in london, a weekend off!

i didnt want to waste it playing skyrim (although that would have been fun). insted i decided to stitch!

This is what i made:

I thought after all these years of reading, playing and watching Akira Toriyama’s work, I should pay tribute to his art style by trying to recreate some of it in stitched form.

This is a bust of one of the most iconic enemies in the Dragonball manga, Freeza (Freiza in us). The huge and epic battle on Namik between him and Goku is still one of those moments that any manga/anime fan talks about. It lasted an incredible 31 episodes in the tv show and was also the first time you see goku transform into the Super Saiyan form.

This manga went on to inspire many artists including Naoto Ōshima (Sonic), Masashi Kishimoto (Naruto) and many others.

This was the first time ive used black aida for one of my own designs and i really liked it. Although you cant see it to well on this photo it makes the image pop out alot more than the more common used white aida. It does take some time getting used to but after a while you get to know where the holes in the frabric are.

This is the first of many ive designed and over the next few months i will make more and post them for all to see =)

well like always feel free to comment and ask questions about my work and will post again very soon.

bye colin

dragonball z coaster!

hiya everyone =)

Christmas has been a long and exusting time of the year and to be honest ive not stitched at all =(

i made this around november time and kinda forgot about it. Ive finished now and put it into this really amazing clear coaster and this is how it turned out:

 

its not the greatest picture but you can get an idea of what it looks like. now for stats/info of the picture (because people do ask)

size: 3 inches on 18ct aida

stitches: 54×54 stitches and a total of 2916

aida: i used DMC 18ct on white (stitched it red because i couldnt find the shade i wanted.)

colours: i used 27 colour shades on this! alot but shading looks great upclose.

time: around 10 hours over november. it would have been less but i tried a few colours for the blonde in his hair before it looked like this.

 

I want to make more but i only got one coaster! (fail)

well like always feel free to comment etc and ill update again soon =)

bye

quick update of my batman project

hiya everyone,

just a quick post just to show you all on how far my batman picture has come along over the last month:

as you can see its still along way off being done but you can get a good idea on what it looks like =)

i wanted to make a stitch sized poster, something that you will see as you walk into a room and think thats cool! once you get closer you notice that its stitched and you’ll have to stop and really look at how ive made it. It’s around one metre long and 60cm tall. To give you an idea this is my girlfriend holding the picture:

im also working on a much smaller image this week thats just 54×54 stitch (3cm square) once i get to a point where its worth seeing i will post that too.

well i hope everyone who reads this is well and ill keep trying to post as and when i can.

bye for now =)

quick bit of info…

thought id let everyone know that this week is the The Knitting and Stitching Show 2011

this is the offical website:

http://www.twistedthread.com/pages/exhibitions/viewExhibition.aspx?id=32

its from the 6th-9th of october 2011 and should be good =)

Im working all week so im only going on the thursday so if your intrested and going on thursday then feel free to say hello.

ive never been to this event before so dont know to much about it but if its anything like the stitch an craft show you can stock up on all your supplies very cheap! I got 40 DMC skeins for £12! You can get Aida by the metre in various colours. but most importantly you’ll come across people like myself who make things you wouldnt normally see and loads of things to give you ideas for future projects.

If you cant make it or not so sure about going then keep checking my blog because ill post pictures and a quick review after the show!

(yes ill remember to take photos this time)

Also,  ive not forgotten about all my subscribers!

if i said im sending you something ive not forgotten, ive just had no spare time to do much on my only day off each week! =(

most of my work days are around 8-14 hours each day plus the 1 hour travel to and from work.

well like i said, if your there this thursday then come and say hi. youll also be able to see how far ive got on making my new batman stitch =)

just some simple mini projects

i made these little hama bead sprites a few nights ago:

i put a 50 pence piece next to them so you can get an idea of size =)

there are some wrong shades of red in these but thats my fault. doing these at 11pm after a 12 hour shift was not the best time but oh well =)

Im going to pick up and finish off some cross stitching ive forgot to do over the summer, so will update when i feel ive done enough to show you all

massive update!

now before i start i want to say sorry to all the people who read my blog for not updating it for months!

ive been really busy with another job, stitch events and just busy with life.

ok now for my stuff =)

 

Pokemon Charity Patches

 

over the last few months ive been working on seven squares for a massive pokemon quilt for the japan tsunami fund. A group of stitchers including myself are making 81 patches of all 151 first gen pokemon. So far we have made 45 at the time of posting this and ive done all of mine =)

here they are:

Each one took around a week or two depending on the fact i sometimes had to wait for colours to arrive.

doing these made me want to take a break from my normal ‘epic stitches’ (as they are being called) and start some smaller projects.

well thats what most of my time was spent doing but i also did these over the summer:

 

Events

one of many events that happened was the stitched science event.

over the weekend we showed people how to cross-stitch and had a little selection of my work on show. it was a very funny event where most people who came didnt want to leave because they were having such a good laugh =)

I decided to just enjoy the weekend while teaching cross-stitch and if people liked it then hope they keep it up, if not then thats a shame.

this was one of many events where i helped jamie Mr X Stitch.

Another event was done by phil ‘urban cross-stitch’ davison. it was on a boat at the tamesis dock on a boat……….yep a boat!

As you can guess it was almost imposible to stitch on a rocking boat! Even this didnt stop it from being a really funny day out stitching =)

this was a promotional event for blue moon beer where if you buy a beer you get a free cross-stitch pattern. I havent really started this yet because of the fact that my girlfriend still feels sea sick just thinking of that day.

it was good to catch up with phil again after going a image for his book that came out in june. Ive not seen it yet so i might go to waterstones and take a look over the weekend.

 

WIPs

here is a quick look of my final fantasyimage i started months ago!

ive got alot more to do on this but i just thought id show you how its going

well thats about all for now.

will keep posting over the next few weeks so keep looking or just subscribe and you’ll get a quick e-mail saying about my new post.

 

whats been happening over the last month

Ok so quite alot has happened over the last month or so and I haven’t blogged for a while, so I thought I’d write a bit about it today. =)

On the 20th of March (I think that was the date), we went to the Stitch and Craft show at the Kensington Olympia in London. Some of my work was on display there and have a picture here with them in the background, the giant Street Fighter ones in the top left corner:

In the picture with me is Jamie ‘Mr X stitch‘ Chalmers himself, and my lovely lady Mims Reilly who stitched the Halloween Hello Kitty in the picture. We spent the whole day there talking and having a laugh, while learning some new and interesting ways of improving my cross stitching work.

The event itself was quite a strange one, with loads of sellers but not much actual crafting. I found this odd but at the same time the average age of people there was around 40+, so most just walked past not quite sure who or what Mr X’s stand was about. Some of the pieces there were done by people from Sprite Stitch and other craft sites. It was a modern alternative twist on the world of Cross Stitching (and different to everything else at the show).

It was the first event of this type I’d attended and I felt a little out of place walking around, but i did go dressed as a walking easy jet plane so that didnt help! =P After walking around for a few hours and buying stuff, like 50 skeins for a Pokemon project (more on that later) and my girlfriend buying a loom (?!), we went back to the stand where we met Helen McCarthy!!!

Helen McCarthy is the reason why we started stitching to begin with! Mims bought her book, called Manga Cross Stitch, for me and I’ve never looked back. We spent hours just talking about all the work we have done and that we’re planning to do over the next few years. Including making comic book art in the Marvel/DC style after she saw my Batman design.

We also spoke about the Japan tsunami disaster and things we could do to raise money for aid and disaster relief. This is when I told her that a few hours before, a few people over at Sprite Stitch and myself, were up until 2am talking about making a giant quilt with squares of all 150 pokemon in them!

As I’m going to talk about the Pokemon Quilt more now you can go to my girlfriend’s blog where she wrote a more in-depth article about the event itself here: http://mimsmusings.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/stitch-and-craft-show-2011/

Ok so about the Pokemon Quilt, we started putting the concept together around the 20th of March, and it has really taken off! There are around 22 members (on the WordPress site, there could be more upon publishing this post) and we are all making as many squares as we are able to do. I have made two, almost three squares this month alone! These are the ones I’m working on:

For those that are not familiar with Pokemon, they are the Charmander evolution, Beedrill evolution and the huge pokemon called Onix!

The idea is to put all the squares together into a quilt and sell it off in a charity event or online auction. We haven’t made any solid plans regarding how to sell it, but I had the idea of making a donation fund, where we have a target of £1000 (around $1634). People could donate as much as they can/want, and whoever donates the most would get the quilt!

This way if it was gonna sell for £300, someone can donate that much, but people can still donate too in hope they get something awesome just for helping charity. This is my idea but people have come up with other ideas too. I will post about it when it comes closer to knowing how you can help out.

Each square is 70×70 stitches, thats 4900 stitches in total.

That comes to 5″ by 5″ on 14ct aida

Each square has a huge difference in the amount of colours used. For example, mine have 21,22 or just 15 colours. After waiting 9 days for the colours to be delivered, I also have 57 more for the next few squares.

If you have any questions feel free to comment and I will try my hardest to help you out.

Check  the link to the left once you’re finished reading to see more information about the gym and charity work we have been doing.

 

Faewren over at Sprite Stitch has made a forum called Patchwork Gym ,  this is where most of us are talking about WIP’s (work in progress) and other such delights

Stitching for Charity

Hello to everyone who reads my blog =)

 

In the last few days a group of stitchers, over at Sprite Stitch including myself have decided to collaborate on stitching individual squares, in order to construct a quilt which we will then sell online to raise money for the Japan Disaster fund.

Here is my square, which I’ve been working on for 3 days now.

We are all basing our squares around a Pokemon theme. Mine is based on the Charmander evolution (although I hope most of you can tell by looking) Obviously the original Pokemon Images belong to the Gamesfreak/Nintendo people (just to cover my legalness), but the configuration (design/layout/colours) of the design is the bit I did.

I will keep posting mine and others progress over the next few weeks so please subcribe to get notifications etc about it.

Well comment and send links of this to anyone and everyone who you think might be intrested about this project and donate if you can afford to because even £1 0r $1 is better than nothing!

 

Ok bye for now and keep reading all my stuff =)