u/eevil_cookie

present is ready

Just a lot of text about my journey into creating original present.
(This is the same post, I just made mistakes in posting, sorry)
Tl;dr: I added pattern to my google drive, have .oxs, .fsjson, .svg and .pdf formats (both colored and not colored), also added .png that I used for converting.

One day i was watching a stream and an idea popped in my head: I follow this streamer for a long time, why not make him a present from fan? The idea was good, but besides just vague "maybe try to stitch something" it didn't go anywhere. And some time later I saw his wishlist for birthday and I there it was - a t-shirt with Doom art. All became clear to me: I can make a unique t-shirt on Doom theme. At that moment I had an experience of stitching bought kits, one shopper bag (but also from kit) and a t-shirt that i started to stitch for myself and abandoned halfway (and also used kit). So new work project seemed monumental - create a pattern from scratch and implement it. It was even scary a bit!

I tried to stay realistic, so the conditions for pattern was:

• not more than 150x150 size
• no backstitches, french knots, even half-crosses. keep it simple
• no background and no full coverage
• not more than 25 colors

I know that I am not an artist, so I needed some ready image to start from. With such conditions I decided to just try to find pixel fanart about Doom. And it worked! I chose a fan art from fellow reditor u/tombaconart, you can also look at their website (before I made this post I asked artist if I can share a pattern based on theirs work).

The art was good, but I decided to draw my version with fewer colors and in smaller resolution. I used Aseprite program (specifically desighen for pixel art, bought it in Steam). Simple Paint may be enough, but Aseprite just has additional features for easily changing one color to another in whole sprite. In the end I got an image with 133x133 size (added png to drive) and 19 colors.

ready image

Then on reddit I found how I can convert image into pattern: flosscross website is great, even has setting specifically for pixel art. But now I faced a very unexpected problem. Before this moment I always used patterns printed on paper that are included in kits, but when I tried to find where I can print this one, it turned out that it will cost for me more than t-shirt or even 15 flosses!

So a search for mobile app to open pattern began. The addition difficulty was the limitation of google apps in store and no possibility to pay for apps in my region. I tried cross stitch saga, but it didn't open .oxs file for some reason (parsing error it said). Then I tried cross stitch paradise, but its interface was too confusing + in supported file extension there was no extension that flosscross provided. In the end I found Pattern Keeper (and flosscross can specifically export for this app), that has free trial. And the UI was wonderful, so easy for newbie, that I decided to use this app. After trial ended, I asked around and it turned out that crosss stitch paradise supports .oxs, so I used it in the end.

First huge mistake that I made was buying too thin t-shirt. I wanted it to be used in summer, but it turned out that if the fabric is so thin, every hole from needle will be noticeable and also stretching on frame will leave some marks. But on other hand it was much easier to stitch on thin fabric compared to shopper bag fabric.

Second mistake was to not use DMC colors that website chose and just visit local shop to find something myself. Maybe sometimes auto-chosen colors are very wrong, but at least I could start from them and buy online all colors instead of only using floss variety from one shop.

At this moment I decided that I want to save money and not buy new flosses if crosses count for this color is fewer than 80. I store all leftovers from used kits, so I was hope to find something suitable. Also the big problem was to find black floss, I searched the whole shop and in the end bought set with several white and black flosses. And the most hard for me was to find flosses of "skin" color.

this organiizer was a present on my birthday)

Third mistake was made when I cut flosses into too long pieces. It was harder to use such pieces, they got tangled more often.

Now it was a time for the most hard part: to sew a waste canvas (I have one that dissolves in water) to a t-shirt exactly straight. In the end I realized that using a pattern with straight lines was also a mistake for newbie) When you are not used to using waste canvas, it is hard to keep it in one place and lines become curved.

After sewing I realized, the canvas is smaller than pattern! it was only 135x115. I didn't even think that canvas can be not wide enough. And I had an experience to use several pieces of canvas on one t-shirt, it was awful. Luckily, this pattern allowed me to just trim blood trails on both ends. But yes, this was another mistake: to not check canvas first before creating pattern.

Important to mention: use big frames with waste canvas, ideally frame should be bigger than whole pattern, because this canvas is not easy to bend over.

Also it is pretty obvious fact, but I didn't expect that male t-shirts are a lot bigger than female ones! Even if size is small, male t-shirt is very wide, you need to keep this in mind.

The process of stitching was not very unique. I just tried to keep insides more neat than usual)

inside part

it is finally ready!

To sum up, don't scare to create your patterns if you can't find ready kits on your theme, I loved the experience I got.

P.S.: my next project is matching t-shirts on hollow kinght theme for another streamers that are getting married.
P.P.S. Don't be too angry to see this post twice, I will try to not make mistakes in future.