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Snitches get Stitches

Fri, 25 Mar 2022 00:24:47 GMT

An accidental commentary on crafting

This wild idea came up at a Christmas party where a friend received an ornament with a hand stitched QR code and my brain absolutely broke! How on earth had I never thought to make a QR code cross stitch after years of designing off beat stitch patterns. I attacked this project head on, doing test after test to see how far I could push the concept design wise. always thinking about how we can incorporate this idea in our regularly scheduled cousin cross stitch projects I started my journey!

I knew what my test link would be IMMEDIATLY. I did some testing using URL shorteners, and finally plugged my perfectly shortened URL into stitch fiddle . From there I opened the exported PDF in Illustrator and customized my grid system. I used colored fishing line to match in the fabric and got to it. In my pre-stitch testing I did find that using the URL shortener did reduce my grid width from 33 to 25, which made my brain feel a lot better. Depending on your fabric gauge, you can get a code down to about an inch. These were done on 14 and are just under an inch and a half square.

So how did the testing turn out? Here is the breakdown:

Test 1: Basic, nothing flashy, works!

Test 2: Four vibrant color gradient on a diagonal, works!

Test 3: Four color tone change gradient on a diagonal, more subtle, doesn't work! (too light?)

Test 4: Three color tone change gradient on a diagonal, works!

We have a lot of design options which is great!

As I shared out my findings with crafters people started to mention the interesting commentary I was making adding in technology to an much more traditional form of art. Bringing it to life in a new age and making it an interactive experience. Not something I had thought about specifically, but the interactivity was what interested me the most. We plan to work QR codes into some of our new designs and I can't wait!

Zip Tease

Thu, 25 Jun 2020 01:08:07 GMT

West side pride

I grew up in West Seattle if you've ever met someone who has or is currently living there, you'll know! West Seattle is just an ordinary neighborhood within the city of Seattle but for some reason, it's a peninsula of pride! We may not be as trendy as Capital Hill or can make legitimate claims to be the center of the known universe like Fremont, but it's safe to say we have the best rocky beaches, a famous music store, and tamales. I don't know if that is what West Seattle is "known" for it is just what comes to mind.

A month or so ago the main bridge that connects West Seattle to the rest of the city was closed due to some structural damage. So now, more than ever, we are our own little island paradise. Come for a lunch and never leave, because it will take you 5 hours to go 6 miles. Being stuck here, I realized it's pretty great and maybe we just embrace it.

Here is a new collection of graphic tees that people can sport showing off their west side pride!

The Colors of Containment

Wed, 20 May 2020 18:43:50 GMT

a socially distant project

I've been inspired by the a great project by Inka Mathew titled Tiny Pantone Objects . She places found objects on a corresponding color matched Pantone Color Chip and documents it! It's such a simple and amazing reuse of a chip book! Before we move on, I should explain what a chip book or even what the hell Pantone is! Pantone is a proprietary color system used by graphic and product designers to ensure color is consistent from the design plan to its production. The Pantone chip books are the encyclopedia of said colors that you can use like paint sample cards.

Since I don't have an old chip book laying around, I needed a substitute. Welcome in coolors.co a great website that helps you create color schemes. Originally created for web designers to check web safe colors and create schemes this site also has a random color generator option that gives you five colors that look great together!

This was such a great solution, now, instead of finding the object first and sorting through a chip book. I used the five random colors given to me, forced to go on a kind of treasure hunt for color! That is basically the whole deal! I did this on safe, socially distant, walks through my neighborhood. Since this was a fully digital experience, I continued with that and used Photoshop to create the final scheme with the found objects.

The last Photoshop step isn't necessary, making it a fantastic trick to get kiddos engaged on a walk! Just pull up the site and keep walking until you snap a photo of each of the colors.

The Belt Project

Wed, 10 Apr 2019 03:22:11 GMT

A couple months ago my brother got all excited about making his own belt buckles, a worthy crafting project! He called me up, gave me the dimensions and said make anything you want, I'll put it in a buckle!

I started out thinking about just color and shape, but then landed on really leaning into the belt theme... I figured this might be another project that get filed under "things only I will find amusing", but I guess we are great siblings for a reason, and he was impressed!

Book Club: George Orwell

Thu, 04 Oct 2018 04:15:52 GMT

1984 is one of my favorite books, I read it every few years or so and glean different little bits of perspective and thought from the story.

Our book club just finished reading it and during our discussion we kept debating about which current countries would reside in each of the three new superpowers. Using the book "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism" with the novel itself as a guide I found several excerpts that lead me to this version you see here. If you are interested in the sited text, see chapter 4, when Winston starts to read the a fore mentioned book by Emmanuel Goldstein, it's Chapter 3, holds several notes referring to current geographical locations.

Stitches Bitches

Thu, 14 Sep 2017 02:54:00 GMT

My cousin and I are currently collaborating on a series of rap lyric cross stitch pieces. I design, he stitches!

It all started a few years ago when my family bought a cabin and we decided it needed a few more modern handmade touches. Our first to pieces simply highlight a few of our favorite cabin past times... eating and puzzling! Just finished the Mount Higgins piece! Now we have to think of a new project!

Want more stitches, check out the QR code testing blog!

Family Slides

Tue, 27 Jun 2017 21:31:22 GMT

Some of my favorite childhood memories were spent huddled around a hot dusty slide projector as my grandparents told us about all their vacation adventures. When they drove across the country they would send us post cards. We would track them as they traveled, with pins and string, on a map in the hallway.

It was exciting to see all the photos they took when they got back, it was like we had been with them in a small way.

All the slides, maps, and photo albums got packed away in boxes years ago. Almost totally forgotten until we uncovered them in a storage unit, trying to downsize. My aunt had them made into DVDs, so we could all crowd around the TV and point at the screen as the young faces appeared out of the past, just like we used to!

This started out as just a fun little design project, making some DVD covers of our family slides so they could be presented in a way that was a little more personalized than the generic slide cover with 10 fonts too many and a random photo.

For me, it was amazing to take a trip back in time, see what they saw, experience the moments of a vacation or day to day life. Look at the series with fresh eyes, see what we tend to skip over because it isn't the perfect shot of someone or something significant.

The shots below are my absolute favorite photos from the hundreds of slides we looked through. I see past the smiling faces, poses, and landmarks to find these. These photos are perfection; the composition, the moment, the wonder.

I find myself asking questions, to the stranger in the blue jacket crossing the tracks. Who are you? What drew you to that spot at that exact second? Why is my dad's camp site total shambles? I mean... look for the guys shoes... who camps like this? For that matter, who goes on a cross country camping trip via small plane?!

Enjoy this small collection.

Classical Composer Timeline

Fri, 20 Jan 2017 23:03:29 GMT

This timeline/infographic came from my surprise that the genre of classical music spans centuries! I had no idea that Beethoven and Bach didn't live in the same time period at all. As I dove down the rabbit hole of composers and wonderful music I found out so much more than just the time these artists lived. Take a look and explore the information and hover over the composer to hear their most popular pieces listed on spotify.

more info please...

If you want to nerd out and look at all the excel document where all this raw data analysis lives, you can download it here!

Triple Crown Infographic

Mon, 02 May 2016 07:00:00 GMT

I've been a fan of horse racing for a while now, the root of which mostly lies in getting all fancy to day drink bourbon. As I learned more about horse racing and it's extensive history I needed a way to keep all this information organized. What started as a spreadsheet eventually became this infographic!

There were so many great things about this project, the research, organizing the information, thinking about how it's audience would approach it and how best to guide them through all the content.

The other part about this project that absolutely thrilled me was that I made it entirely in PowerPoint! I worked in illustrator to open vector files only, then copied them into PowerPoint. The file has over 1,000 layered objects in it, so many in fact, that I ended up separating the graphic into several slides when it started to get cumbersome to work with.

I love pushing the capabilities of this program, but I will admit, the next time I make a piece like this I'll stick with Illustrator!

Book Club: Barbara Walters

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 08:00:00 GMT

We have a sort of show and tell type meeting at work, I had just finished reading Barbara Walters' How to talk with practically anybody about practically anything and thought it would be a great opportunity to share some of her thoughts with other designers who may have been struggling with professional social situations with Executives they work with.

I chose to read this book myself in an effort to build and maintain a friendly relationship with executives and their teams, I see them often, and should be friendly and open with them, but I struggle with finding that line. This topic has been a professional and personal challenge of mine for a long time, I was very shy as a child, and I think that my naturally closed/quiet default is still there in unfamiliar situations.

Published in 1970, quite a bit of the content is dated, and strangely inappropriate in today's society, however the heart of the subject matter is still good, Overall this is the theme of the book, specific situations and people aside.

In the section on talking with celebrities, Barbara leads in with how this really does apply to all people in all situations, its just harder in more intimidating situations, Where there you think there is a large variance of power. I found this to be especially helpful in navigating social situations with our high power clients.

I've included my talking points in a .PDF for more on the subject. I'd certainly recommend it, despite it's age.

Icons: The Universal Language?

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:00:00 GMT

As a visual communicator, one of the first things I notice about a new place is what non-verbal communication style a region implements. This became more apparent to me on a business trip to Spain.

As soon as I landed in Barcelona, I instinctively knew exactly where to go, pick up my bag, and get a cab to the hotel even though Spanish was the dominant written language on the signage.

Most of what we regularly see in airports and other public spaces in the United States are a standard set of symbols designed in 1974. Created in an effort to unify communication in a shrinking global community, the Department of Transportation produced a set of 50 universal symbols. Most of us see these images, recognize their meaning and immediately understand the symbolism.

However, as soon as I got settled at the hotel and began exploring, those familiar icons were nowhere to be found. Instead, I started to see quite a bit of visual subtleties that really differ from some of the more standard icons we usually see in the US. I began to interpret these icons very differently from the creator’s intent, based on my American pop-culture upbringing.