I make websites and write code for a living, so in my free time I'm attracted to things that irrefutably exist. Like greasy 1970s BMW motorcycles, and movies on heavy, inconvenient 16MM film reels. And especially those two things combined. I also really like dense, textural needlepoint, which has a lot in common with pixel art. Instead of being made of electrons, phosphor, and worry, though, needlepoint is made of canvas, starch, wool, and time. A needlepoint cover for a brick doorstop will very probably exist in its original form in fifty or even a hundred years. Unlike, oh... every line of code written for an interactive website.
I made a needlepoint pillow top on 13-count mono canvas containing the 2D barcode for "Pillow" at Semapedia. It's a pillow, and it says "pillow" in the machine-readable code, but you can't read that code unless you have a cameraphone or a frickin' laser beam. So it's pretty nerdy. It got picked up by Craft Magazine, then by BoingBoing, and most recently got a brief mention in the NY Times.
If you have any questions about creating the wourld's very first Rap Chop kleenex box cover, please email me at !
Other nerdy needlework links
(Last updated in 2008; please let me know what should be added!)
DOS-stitch: tracert output in cross-stitch. It was this awesome project, plus the memory of my grandmother's First City Troop needlepoint footstool, that made me want to try needlepoint. Lots more of Kate Pemberton's stuff here.
The KnitPro Web App: create a .pdf stitch chart from any .gif, .jpg, or .png image. It's really, really useful since the PDF separates the pixels into easy-to read boxes. For notes on how to get a semacode rezzed exactly right, check out this blog post.
Nintendo DS case: needlepoint on plastic canvas, with really nice finishing. I see that Rosemary Travale, the wonderful illustrator who made it, did her own chart in Illustrator, too.
What else should be here? Please let me know in the comments.