Geek Crafts

As promised, I come bearing geekiness as gleaned from Mr X Stitch at the Stitch and Craft show…

I am, frankly amazed (and a little appalled) at myself for never having come across Lord Libidan before. His work is amazing – generally centered around video games, and packed full of original, interesting ideas.

The Transformers, sewn onto plastic canvas, actually transform. Oh yes. There’s Jetfire &  Optimus Prime (as seen here) who of course become a plane and a truck respectively – and also a couple of tapes; Ratbat & Laserbeak, which will fit into the soon-to-come Soundwave/tapedesk. I love that they are based on the original toys, not the new versions – tres retro chic. And (this is the best bit) all of the patterns are all available from his Etsy Shop. Huzzah!

This Pokemon image is stitched stereoscopically – so if you put on red & blue 3D glasses (great fashion choice, btw) it pops out at you. Excuse me while I cry at the awesomeness.

This manbroiderer may not really be a lord, but I agree with him; he should be.

• Mr X Stitch
• Lord Libidan blog
• Lord Libidan’s etsy store

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Bright and early yesterday morning I headed off to the 2012 Stitch and Craft show in Kensington. To be honest, it was much the same as these things tend to be – the big fairs never seem to have their finger on the crafting pulse, and the embroidery area was particularly unaware of the modern craft movement. But tucked away in a corner, behind the cross-stitched Winnie-the-Poohs and past the Jo Verso samplers was a lost gem – Mr X Stitch‘s stand. Pushing my way past all the middle-englanders fighting over ”bargain” pastel shades of thread had been worth it for the chance to meet one of my crafting idols.

I got snaps of of truly awesome pieces of stitched art that I will share with you in my regular slot on Tuesday (if i can hold off that long. This stuff is gold – cyclops robots, raver tigers, QRs and Mondrian graffiti is just the start), but I just wanted to stick my head through the door and let anyone in the London area know to head down and say hello to Mr X – he’s lovely; very friendly, funny and upbeat (and rather tasty-looking).  Plus he has biscuits.

Elsewhere in the show, the quilts exhibition is well worth a browse as there are a few interesting nuggets, and the knitted village is… unexpected. Though I didn’t have time for any of the workshops there are some good ones on offer. Even if you don’t want to sign up to a proper class, lots of stalls were doing demos, or had staff more than happy to explain how particular pieces were made. It’s a good excuse to get out and about this weekend.

The works In the above image are (clockwise from top): Kanye by Crapestry, X-Stitch Robot 7 by Eliot BK, QR Code by Crapestry, Rokit by Mr X Stitch

Stitch and Craft 2012 at Kensington Olympia 2, this weekend

Mr X Stitch’s blog

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There is nothing I love more than a good meme. Nyan Cat is among my favourites. Carexcore captured him pretty well in this cross stitch. Super fab!

Check out carexcore on Flickr

Join the Geek Crafts Flickr Group

More memes on Geek Crafts

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Hi, everyone! Today I’m in the mood to show off, a little. My husband’s a major Metroid fan, having played pretty much every Metroid game out there and even found a Metroid-themed drink, in the past. So when he joined the dark side got an iPhone, and I offered to cross-stitch him a case, I should probably have expected that he’d want an 8-bit Samus.

I basically copied the Samus Aran cross stitch from Azay’s Video Game CraftHaven. I admit: it’s a lot harder copying a finished piece than working from a pattern, for some reason. Which is to say, yes, anyone looking super closely will notice that I got a pixel flipped, but, uh, just don’t tell my husband, eh? ;)

Here are a couple of other Metroid-themed crafts from the past:

• A sweet-looking Metroid scarf
• 10 Awesome Geeky Perler Bead Crafts (last one)

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While I haven’t really done any cross-stitching since about the age of eight, I can appreciate it as an arts-and-craft-form. Done properly and on an interesting subject, and it can be pretty damn impressive. (My mother once re-created this iconic La Dame aux Camelias Mucha poster with spectacular results. Just wish I had a photo to show you!) Anyway, tangent aside, I have found some awesome cross-stitch patterns on The Crafty Companion’s Etsy shop. She creates and sells patterns on an array of geek themes from Doctor Who to Game of Thrones, Firefly to Harry Potter. Very cute, not to mention reasonably priced. ($3 per pattern seems like a good deal to me!)

• The Crafty Companion’s Etsy shop

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We’ve been watching a lot of The Big Bang Theory episodes lately, so I thought a roundup of Big Bang crafts might be fun. The Internets did not disappoint me.

Craftyclogs posted this great amigurumi crochet set of Big Bang Theory characters at Craftster – complete with patterns!

Doaflip posted this understated Big Bang Theory cross-stitch project on Craftster – an ode to Sheldon‘s Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock decision-making technique.

Another crazy-detailed needlework project – a flowchart of how Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock works. The crafter, mindboggld, took various pictures from the internet and imported them into Visio to create the chart. Clever girl, and extra geek points for using Visio! I would love to just get a poster print of this for my son! Click on the image above for close-ups!

Also from mindboggld, a set of Big Bang Theory tile coasters, with 3D molecule renderings she found at 3dchem.com. I love that it includes Lactose, since Leonard is lactose-intolerant. These were included in a swap with the above embroidery! I can’t believe she gave them away! Clever AND strong, that one!

A fun & cozy set of Big Bang Theory character plushies by cubosabio on Deviantart. As one of the project commentors said, “these rock more than Care Bears.”

I hadn’t heard the term “hako clones” before seeing this Big Bang Theory paper toys project – I guess I always referred to them in my head as “paper cube heads”. Perhaps hako clones has more (ba)zing(a) to it. Bonus: the artist ditch-scrawls posted the templates in his papercraft gallery. Be sure to link over there, because he has lots of other geeky hako templates, like Luke Skywalker, Superman, Army of Darkness Ash, Highlander, & Dr. Who.

While neither my son nor I are particularly crazy about Sheldon’s catch-phrase, I do like the simplicity of these “Bazinga” earrings by Just Duckie Designs on Etsy.

I’ve seen these photo clocks at Hobby Lobby & Archivers, but never would have thought of putting TV stills in the spaces, like this Sheldon clock by P.S. Francis. You could also intersperse pictures with character quotes. Might be kind of fun to have different clocks in each room, each highlighting a different show or movie. A Firefly clock, anyone?

So, all you BBT fans out there – what are some of your favorite quotes?

Links of Interest:

• Big Bang Theory amigurumi dolls by Craftyclogs
• Big Bang Theory “Stop Putting Up Spock” cross-stitch by Doaflip
• Big Bang Theory embroidered Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock flowchart by mindboggld
• Big Bang Theory tile coasters by mindboggld
• Big Bang Theory plushies by cubosabio
• Big Bang Theory hako clones by ditch-scrawls
• Bazinga earrings by Just Duckie Designs
• Sheldon clock by P.S. Francis

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