Beyond Cross Stitch Patterns

Beading Cross Stitch patterns is fun.  But it is also limiting.  My father's birthday was coming up and I wanted to do a picture for him.  He is an avid fisherman - so I wanted to do a picture of a largemouth bass.  Not too many cross stitch patterns of that!  So I bought and checked out the Bead Creator Pro software.  I am so glad I did.  This software is easy to use.  Just import your picture or other art and convert it into Delica colors and a pattern.  You can even create a pattern directly in the program.

The Indian loom was an excellent way to learn how to work on a loom.  But it is very limiting if you always have to sew a bunch of panels together.  I graduated to a four inch loom and did several more pieces.  I'll showcase them in another blog.  Now jump start ahead past all those projects, and I have invested in a much wider loom.  I want to make my father's picture in one panel. 

I like using this style of a loom.  It comes with an optional stand- you can lay it flat or use the stand as shown here.

Here is a side view of the loom - you can see the optional stand supporting the loom at approx a 45 degree angle.  Just right for dest top working. 

Now for the pattern.  I chose a rather abstract picture of a largemouth bass.  I wanted to capture the excitment of the fish jumping out of the water as it is being landed in the boat.  Here is the finished image after I converted it with Bead Creator Pro.  This was a very challenging project.  There were over 350 colors in the pattern.  Bead management was a very big issue, but I did not want to skimp on the color.  This was the hardest project I've done up to this point - but it was worth every bit of effort.  I worked on it for at least an hour each day and it took approx 8 weeks to finish. But in the end it was well worth the effort.

Here you can see the printed artwork that I used to create the pattern for my beaded picture.  Above the printed art work are the first rows of the beaded picture.

Here the picture is about 1/2 way finished.

Here is the finished piece still on the loom.

And here is the final framed artwork.  I was very pleased with the final results and so was my dad!