Halloween Hobbies: Free Cross Stitch Patterns

Posted: September 26, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Halloween, Knitting, Uncategorized, Wicked Fun - try this | Tags: , , , , , , | 2 Comments

FREE HALLOWEEN CROSS STITCH PATTERNS:

I realize folks could arrive at this page at any time of year, but the majority of readers will visit in the late summer or early autumn, when their thoughts first turn to Halloween. Starting a cross stitch project at this time of year is the perfect way to get into the spirit of season without freaking out the neighbors by putting up premature decorations.

(What’s premature? I’m not a good judge. Some of my “Halloween Decorations” stay out all year round.)

The weather at this time of year is volatile. Depending on the date, and your location, it could be hot and thick, as summer has its last hurrah; or it could be cool and rainy, as autumn comes on. In either case, it seems there are more opportunities to settle in for an evening with some cross stitch … and, perhaps, a great scary movie. (Maybe an iconic old horror film, or one about Halloween or ghosts?) It’s also a busy time of year for many of us, as back-to-school demands fire up. Keeping all that in mind, I’ve featured projects that range from quick and easy, to elaborate and complicated. There should be something here you can finish in the time you have before Halloween.

Note: Yes, I used my Free Halloween Knitting Patterns post as a template for this one. The wording IS almost identical. You are not going crazy.

FREE CROSS STITCH CHARTS:

 

freepatterns.com
hobbyloco.com
kreinik.com
cyberstitchers.com
kreinik.com
hobbyloco.com
kreinik.com
kreinik.com
cyberstitchers.com
cyberstitchers.com
cyberstitchers.com
hobbyloco.com

If you hover over the image in the gallery above, you’ll see that each featured piece is captioned with the name of one of the following source sites. The “hover-title” is the name of the pattern, and the designer. These images are just a sampling of what’s available … have fun browsing each site for just the right project.

Find the charts at the following links:

Two of the projects pictured in the gallery have specific links:

What will you make? What would you LOVE to make?

I’m going to do something really scary:

I plan to stitch a project from a a chart that I designed myself. I’ll share my plan, but I DON’T recommend that you choose my design, unless you can see from experience that it will work for you. I’ve never done this before, and I have no idea if it will turn out well.

Image of Cross Stitch Carpe Noctem by Renae Rude

As I was finishing this post, I decided to go looking for some kind of program that would allow me to create a chart for a project that’s been in the back of my mind for a while. I found MyPhotoStitch.com. I played with the tool to get an idea of what kind of image would work well as a base design. (I already knew I wanted the design to read ‘Carpe Noctem’.) I dug through my photo files to find a pic of the moon, against a pure black sky, that my Ogre took. I imported that photo into Kizoa.com, which is a free online photo editor. There, I added the Carpe Noctem text, and a piece of owl clip art that Kizoa had, to my re-sized photo. THEN I imported the new image into the MyPhotoStitch chart maker tool. I had to play with the setting a fair bit, but I think I’ve come up with a workable chart.

My plan is to work on 18 X 12 piece of black, 14-count, Aida cloth. MyPhotoStitch says the finished design will be 7″ X 5.5″. I designed the project to be workable in ten colors or less. The chart ended up suggesting nine. I won’t know if the recommended floss colors will be right … I’ll check tomorrow, when I go shopping for the supplies. (I’d actually like the brighter edge of the moon to better match the brighter parts of the text.)

Here’s the link to the PDF chart (on 4 pages!) that MyPhotoStitch gave me:

CAUTION: (Edited the next day.)  If you print the following PDF, you will use A LOT of black ink! Thank goodness I went to Office Max to have it printed, so I didn’t kill my cartridge. Ogre will fix it this weekend, with his magic Photoshop, and a pattern with a WHITE background will be available too.  That said, I actually like being able to see the pattern against the black, because the fabric I’m working on is black. So, if you like that idea, be sure to take it somewhere where a color print doesn’t cost much.

cross stitch day 1

Cross Stitch Pattern Carpe Noctem by Renae Rude

Questions for experienced cross-stitchers:

  1. First off, and most importantly, does this seem like a viable project?
  2. Would you stitch in the owl and branch with black, or just leave the black Aida cloth showing there? (I’m leaning toward filling it in, but I don’t know how to blend the lower branch edge into the Aida cloth, or if it will look weird if I just end it at the edge of the moon.)

So that’s it for now. I will update as I progress with the project. Cross your fingers for me!

Halloween Index

RETURN TO THE HALLOWEEN INDEX

NOTE: All above photographs and images of cross stitch projects were obtained from the site of the original source of the free pattern and are used for the purpose of referring readers to the website that offers the content.  At posting, all links are current and active. I have NOT made the projects, so I cannot guarantee that patterns are correct.

The photograph of box of embroidery floss, used on the main Halloween index page, is ready to stitch! by Claudia Marchán.

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Let’s Play Spaceteam! (With The Paranormalist & The Boy.)

Posted: January 3, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: *Macabre Media, Photos & Video, Wicked Fun - try this | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

I’ve got a couple of goodies for you guys tonight.

GOODY #1: SPACETEAM

First up, I want to share my very first “Let’s Play,” which I made at the urging of The Boy. In this video filmstrip, you can hear the two of us playing Spaceteam, an addictive and exciting game designed especially for sci-fi geeks.

In the game, you use your cell phone (or tablet) to receive technobabble instructions, which you then must shout out to your teammates, who must complete the instructions on their screens, WHILE you are trying to hear and follow the instructions that others are calling out for you.

It’s a blast.

WARNING: There is some cursing in this Let’s Play video. 

Spaceteam is a free download. Be aware that the connection process requires wyfi or bluetooth capability on all devices involved. It can also be a little fiddly. On our phones, it works great about 3 out of 4 times. When it doesn’t work, the phone must be restarted. This is also a huge battery drain WHILE you’re playing, but it doesn’t seem to be a bother when it’s not in use. 

Scroll down to see credits for all the great digital artists who provided the clipart I used to illustrate the filmstrip. I like to give credit where credit is due, even when I don’t have to.

GOODY #2: OPENCLIPART.

Wait. Clipart that doesn’t require any credits at all??

Ayup.

Check out the following information I’ve swiped from the Openclipart website:

Unlimited Commercial Use

Lots of image projects use confusing words such as images being royalty free, then you read the fine-print and find there are fees or limitations on how you might use an image. We try to make it clear that you may use all clipart even for unlimited commercial use. We believe that giving away our images is a great way to share with the world our talents and that will come back around in a better form.

All Clipart are Released into the Public Domain.

To the extent fully possible, each artist at Openclipart releases all rights to the images they share at Openclipart. The reason is so that there is zero friction in using and sharing images authors make available at this website so that each artist might also receive the same benefit in using other artists clipart totally for any possible reason.

So how cool is that? But it gets better. Not only can you use the clipart there, you can also use a pretty sophisticated digital editor (along the lines of Photoshop) to alter said clipart, or to make your own. It took me a couple of days to get a feel for the tools, but I will definitely be using it in the future.

That’s about it, but I do want to send a nod out to the following folks, who give away their art without expecting anything in return: