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Nerdlepoint patterns and canvases available on Etsy
You can get nerdlepoint patterns and canvases on Etsy, at nerdlepoint.etsy.com! The patterns will work for either needlepoint or cross-stitch. |
Hello. My name is John Young, and I am a nerd.
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.
I'm having a great time continuing to explore how best to stitch a 2D barcode — right now, the hard part for me is painting the canvas — and so I figured I'd put up the charts I make here, at this Google-friendly URL. As soon as I (ahem!) finish one, I'll post it here, along with some instructions, for free download.
If you have any questions or want a stitch chart that will allow you to create the world's very first Rick Roll kleenex box cover, please email me at !
Other nerdy needlework links
- 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? Pleas let me know in the comments.