Geek Crafts

Matilda is one of the quintessential geek kid’s books; the story of a nerd girl who uses her brain to bring a pinch of justice to the world is bound to resonate with swots of all ages. A couple of years ago I managed to get myself to Stratford ‘pon Avon to see the RSC’s christmas musical version of the book and was completely blown away by it – one of those performances that remind me why I work in theatre. Anyway, since then the production has transferred to the West End, won a load of awards and caused a considerable dent in my finances from ticket purchasing.

Laura, or LollyPolly as she is known over at the Minchin fan forums (the music for Matilda was written by our very own rock nerd Tim, who of course did a fantastic job with Dahl’s dark comedy), made this brilliant cushion commemorating the show’s opening song – which echoes the prologue to the book in that we get to hear about how miraculous all the children except Matilda are. It’s a fantastic example of how effective even simple embroidery can be if the colours, fabric and design are well chosen. With any luck Laura will now have caught the needlework bug and will go on dazzling us with her work in future.

Matilda the musical official site

Angry (Feet) – Tim Minchin’s fan forum

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This Geek Chic machine embroidery pattern from Urban Threads is so charming – I love the cat’s eye glasses and subtle coding bits and pieces woven into the overall design! Thanks to my friend Ruth (stitcher and gifter of the +1 of Awesome towel) for spotting it and posting the link.

• Geek Chic embroidery pattern from Urban Threads

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• Carcassonne T-shirt embroidery

With yet another holiday season behind us, it is nice to reflect on some of the quality time spent with family and friends. I was fortunate enough to have my wonderful in-laws visit us from Milawaukee for a few days around the New Year’s holiday. One of our favorite things to do together is play the game Carcassonne. If you are not familiar with Carcassonne, it is a tile-based German-style board game that has been lauded, by some, as one of the best-designed board games out there. So fun, you guys.

Today’s craft comes by way of Laura Hatrich’s embroidery of one of the Carcassonne tiles on a T-shirt for her husband. You can see the side-by-side comparison of the embroidery and tile in the image.  Really smart use of the various thread colors to bring out the detail in the tile! I have no doubt Laura’s husband incited envy among Carcassonne lovers wherever he went!

• Laura Hatrich’s crafts on Flickr
• Carcassone T-shirt embroidery

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I love this embroidery I found on Flickr, by user knitxcore! And the photography is as wonderful as the stitching. Apparently the holidays (in the Pacific Northwest!) have put me in a strange Twin Peaksy mood. I’ve been Googling for crafts along these lines. Perhaps it’s time for a re-watching.

Anyway, the embroidery: according to Flickr, she used a transfer for the owl, wrote the text by hand, and then stitched over both. This sounds like an excellent holiday project for any Twin Peaks fans out there!

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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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so cuuuuute!

Craftster member loveandasandwich stitched up the super adorable Gizmo embroidery hoop. Her use of felt and fur  really brings the piece to life. I just hope she remembers to keep that hoop dry, that’s al I’m sayin’.

• Go to the post on craftster
• Embroidery on Geekcrafts
  

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