Cross Stitch on Steroids

 

 

If you’ve ever done cross stitch in any form, you’ll understand how fun it can be, how relaxing and mind numbingly TEDIOUS!

I saw these :

  

I thought to myself, how do I do these in giant form in less time?? Ceiling grid tiles came to mind, but they are plastic and flimsy at best.  And then it hit me! Peg Board!

 It has holes that can join up to make the x’s needed in cross stitch, it’s bigger than any cross stitch canvas and it’s cheap at $8.00 for a 2’x4′ sheet at the Home Depot. (which let me interject here is a double edged sword as I’ll explain shortly).

I have used peg board to make a fabulous headboard, and now it could make a piece of art.

After deciding on the retro girl, I had to figure out (CURSES! Math!) how to draw it on the board and how the stitches would fall and how to position it.  After a few false starts I got it figured out.  I drew out a grid and then x’d my pattern on the backside of the board, in chalk, which was great to erase and start over when I needed to – more times than I’d like to admit actually. Ok, I’ll admit it was 4 times, or maybe five….I quickly saw that because of the size of the pegboard and the number of x’s in the actual pattern, I wouldn’t get the whole picture on the pegboard.  If a seam would not bother you running through your cross stitch, you can attach pegboards together to get the size you need OR you could separate the pegboards and make a cross stitch tryptic (Ha! say THAT 3 times fast) which then I would be jealous I didn’t think of that until now.

Tip number 1: Unless you want it opposite to the actual picture, remember to flip the original so that when you start your stitches on the back side it will translate properly ( I didn’t do that since I really didn’t give it much thought, and it took me awhile to realize why I wasn’t seeing the results correctly. Duh.)

Tip number 2: Because the holes are large, you could use ribbon, thick string, or like me, left over wool (thanks, mom!). Another blogger who is a knitter, suggested getting bits and bobs at thrift stores, which of course is genius.

Tip number 3: And speaking of the wool, cut longish manageable lengths so you aren’t continually reaching for another strand but not too long that it makes that frustrating knot mess that can happen. (Happened!)

Tip number 4: Tape the end of the wool with any tape you have on hand. It makes a good needle-ish apparatus to jam through the hole and keeps the wool from fraying.

Tip number 5: I found holding the pegboard upright like how I imagine a harp player holds a harp was the easiest way to check out the back and front as much as I needed.  Maybe wearing something you don’t mind getting chalk on is a good idea too since you constantly come in contact with it.

And it’s off to the races.  Because the grid is drawn on its fairly easy to count where you start and switch.  I chose to keep it super simple since counting is still in the math family and I tend to get distracted easily.  The nice thing (I think) is if you muck it up and the stitches are dropped and forgotten, it’s no big deal.  It can still look really cool and like you had planned it that way all along!

I kept it simple with the black and red (a little wink of pink).

I messed up the eye on the left a bit, but like I said above…and I love that she almost looks like Betty and Veronica. I love Betty and Veronica.

And there you go! I’d say it took about 3 hours of actually stitching – there may not seem like a lot, but it is a lot of work balancing the board and counting and stuff.

I think I may try just painting x’s on a canvas.  Could be x-citing…….