The Interior DIYer
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That’s just like, your opinion, man

I’ll start off by stating that we are a household of regular Dude references. When it came to making something for fiance for his birthday last week, I knew I wanted to make a pop-culture/cult reference. For fiance, that would be either Star Wars, Call of Duty/Battlefield, or The Big Lebowski.

While scrawling through Honestly WTF a couple weeks back, and saw this post about the seriously talented Mark Hall-Patch and his watercolours, where he delicately paints and draws clothing. There was one particular cardigan that immediately reminded me of the Dude’s cardigan from The Big Lebowski, also known as a Pendleton Cowichan Cardigan, and I knew I had to make a Mark Hall-Patch-inspired version for fiance.
I drew up an image of the Dude’s cardigan, and for the first time in eight years, I used watercolours. A little scary, but watercolours are quite safe and very forgiving, luckily for me. I’m not madly in love with the final piece {it’s a little cartoony, I could have chosen better paper, and I should have spent more time on it; the ush}, but those with a keen movie interest shouldn’t have too much trouble deciphering it. I hope.

Image 2 image cred!

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Release your inner geek

For Christmas I made this old-school IT Crowd inspired cross stitch for fiance. He’s in the middle of his final year studying Computing Science {aka, IT}. He’s one of those guys you can tell is an IT guy – curly hair, cute glasses, pale skin – just how I like them. So in an act of hindsight for his impending career, I created this little cross stitch for him for Christmas. For anyone who may not be familiar with the phrase “have you tried turning it off and on again”, please see below –

Unfortunately, anyone looking for the old computer picture frame I used won’t have much luck. I bought this frame from Urban Outfitters some time ago. Sorry. I had it stashed away for just the right moment.
For this picture frame, I measured the size of the frame window at 13.5 x 11cm, or 72 x 57 stitches. From that, and through the magic of excel, I was able to draw a basic layout. And this is when I realized the typical cross stitch ‘x’ formation was not going to cut it for the text.  

Below is my scribble process with how I came about the text format. Sometimes pen and paper just works better. I managed to find a text style much more in keeping with my old-school computer stitch. 

Only taking an hour to stitch, my present was complete! Fiance loves his newest nerdy addition to our living room. Below, his new geek cross stitch in action. Look at it go.
Additional note: a good piece of advice was read out at my graduation from the CEO of Microsoft Ireland – “Always be nice to nerds because chances are, one day you’ll work for one”. And in some cases, marry one 🙂
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For the love of Star Wars

My better half enjoys Star Wars, to say the least. This time last year I had an idea for a painting. I took an image of a stormtrooper and morphed it into a simple pattern. It took about 3 hours or so to paint, with the detailing getting the better of my OCD.

I would really like to make a large scale wallpaper style pattern like this in needlepoint/cross stitch form, but it’ll have to wait until AC {after college}. For the moment it’s hanging in our hallway amongst a plethora of other treasured delights such as hand written letters from both my grandmothers, and pricey prints I got at an auction on a cruise holiday a couple years ago {free champagne – need I say more?}.