Pretty Cunning Cross Stitch, Don't Ya Think?

With Can't Stop the Serenity screenings happening world-wide this weekend I can't think of a better excuse to feature another wonderful Firefly inspired stitching. This one comes from Craftster user silentblair. Check out the tiny pompoms on top of those hats, pretty cunning!

And in case you haven't heard, tonight is the Joss Whedon Birthday Firefly Watch Party:

“What can we do to convince Netflix that the ‘verse is worth their while? What can we do to prove that Neilsen ratings arent the be-all and end-all?” Well, how about this- let’s just have the largest on-demand watch party ever! Let’s get the most people ever streaming the same show at the same time from Netflix- 4 episodes of Firefly – and show them its worth a few hundred million to invest in it! Not that they are required to respond, hell, they’re Netflix! But perhaps if we show them that the overwhelming horde of Browncoats worldwide would pay more to see firefly… well, maybe they’ll think twice.

Pencil in June 23rd, 2011, 8pm EST – Midnight EST(5pm-9pm PST) to celebrate Joss Whedon’s birthday by sending the signal further than it’s ever gone before. How many Browncoats can we get on Netflix for four wonderful hours of awesome? -- Courtesy of Firefly Watch.

So if you don't have anything else going on tonight fire up the Netflix, make some popcorn and spend some time in the 'verse!

Browncoat Christmas Ornaments - With Free Patterns!

This holiday season you can show off your Christmas spirit and your Browncoat pride at the same time. I wanted to design a quick and versatile Christmas craft project that would be a good homemade gift for my Firefly loving friends and also a nice piece of subtle geekery to add to my own holiday decorating. After rejecting a couple of other ideas I think these cute little guys sporting their Jayne hats have hit the mark.

Made on 7 mesh plastic canvas these ornaments are about 4 inches tall by 2.5 - 3 inches wide and each one would probably take about 2-4 hours to stitch up, depending on your stitching experience.

They're perfect for hanging on the Christmas tree or attaching to presents as a gift tag. I'm going to post the directions here for how to make the ornaments on plastic canvas, but feel free to take the gridded patterns and let your imaginations run wild. The patterns could also be used to make these little guys in cross stitch, fuse beads, knitting, crochet or anything else you can think of. And if you do come up with a clever way to use the patterns, feel free to send me a picture or a link to somewhere that you've posted your creation online.

(Clicking on the patterns should cause them to open a new window where they will appear somewhat larger on most browsers. Then you can print them or save them to your own hard drive.)

Materials

(Note: While I haven't taken an exact measurement, I would estimate that you will need approximatley 10 metres or less of the dominant colour in each design, and 3-6 metres of the other colours. These take very little yarn and are ideal for leftover bits from previous projects.)

• small amounts of worsted weight yarn in the colours shown in the pattern grid.
• Black embroidery floss (DMC 310)
• White embroidery floss (for Gingerbread man only)
• 7 mesh plastic canvas
• No. 16 or No. 18 tapestry needle (blunt is preferred)
• scissors

Directions

1. Cut the plastic canvas into a smaller rectangle that is 2 squares wider and 2 squares longer than the ornament you're planning to make. (For example, the penguin is 17 squares wide by 28 squares high, so to make him you would cut a piece of plastic canvas that is 19 X 30 squares).
2. For all squares indicated on the graph, cut two pieces of yarn in the appropriate colour and stitch in continental stitch.
3. Begin stitching with the four yellow squares in the centre of the Jayne hat in the centre of the top row on your plastic canvas. Work downward from this central starting point. Weave ends in on back of the piece when changing colours.
4. Once all of the continental stitching is complete, switch to embroidery floss. Cut floss and do not separate into individual strands. Use the 6-strand piece to backstitch the thin black lines on the grid. (Use white floss to backstitch where indicated by thin white lines on the Gingerbread man grid.)
5. Use scissors to trim the ornaments leaving a line of plastic canvas around the outer edge of all your stitches. Refer to top picture to see how ornaments are cut.
6. Cut an 8 inch piece of embroidery floss, separate into individual strands. Thread one strand through top centre of ornament and knot to create loop for hanging.

As always, feel free to post a comment or contact me through the blog's email address if you have any questions about the patterns. I'll do my best to help you out.

Enjoy!

Firefly Patterns in Action

I thought this would be a nice follow-up to yesterday's post. Here for your viewing pleasure are two crafty projects that were made using the Firefly character cross stitches that I designed.

To the left is a Firefly bag that Paula made for a Firefly-themed swap on Ravelry. I have to say, she has a very lucky swap partner! I'm definitely putting a bag like this on my wish list.

Pictured below is a Firefly afghan stitched up by Happyhooker. This was made using the Tunisian style of crochet and I have to say I'm in awe of anyone who finishes a large project in tunisian. It took me over two weeks to finish a single square for a large project I'm planning and I haven't gone back to it since...

You can see the patterns lose a bit of their detail when converted to crochet, but the characters are still recognizable. It looks cozy and who wouldn't want to curl up with this band of bad guys!

A bonus project! I discovered this one when I was checking out happyhooker's blog. Want to make your own crocheted Serenity? Of course you do! The patterns available free here. Thanks happyhooker for creating this one and posting it to share with everyone.

Firefly Fundraising Success!

Readers may recall that I was donating some of my Firefly cross stitch pieces to various Can't Stop the Serenity screenings throughout Canada.

After successful screenings in Vancouver, Edmonton and Toronto, I can now happily announce that my cross stitches raised a grand total of $438 for Equality Now and the other sponsored charities in each city.

To say I'm overwhelmed by this total would be an understatement. I'm in awe of how generous my fellow Browncoats were in their bidding and really pleased that my cross stitch pieces were able to bring in this much money for our charities.

The Big Damn Heroes cross stitch above was the highest seller. It was in the auction at our Vancouver screening and went for $110.

Also at the Vancouver screening, this Wash piece sold for $85 and the River one went for $63.

Here in Vancouver Jayne was paired with a Jayne Hat tea cozy and sold for a total of $60. The Jayne cross stitch that I sent to Toronto was included in their Jayne package which also contained a Jayne Hat pin and Blue Sun T-shirt. That package sold for $80.

Edmonton had a smaller screening than the other two cities, with just under 100 people in attendance. They were pleased to raise $40 through the sale of this 3 character Big Damn Heroes cross stitch.

I wanted to share how well each piece did in case there are any other crafty Browncoats out there who were thinking of making something for a screening in their area later this year or even next year.

In general supplies for each piece cost me under $15 each and all the pieces I made earned far more than what I put out on supplies and shipping. As to the time I spent stitching and framing, I consider that my donation to the cause.

So if anyone is on the fence about making something like this for their own charity screening, I highly recommend it. All three organizers told me that the unique homemade items are always a high seller at their auctions.

In closing, another big thank you to everyone who bid on these pieces and to everyone who provided me with feedback about the designs through the blog, on Craftster or in person at the Vancouver screening. To anyone interested, the patterns for cross stitching the Firefly cast members are all available free on the blog under the My Free Patterns heading.

Enjoy and stay shiny!

Crafting of a Different Sort

The boyfriend, who is both wise and witty, and I spent a day at V-Con 34 a couple weekends ago . Since most of the goodies I picked up there were by original artists and science fiction themed I thought I'd share a few pics here. Some of these were one-of-a-kind pieces so I've photoshopped "copy" text over them to prevent people from making their own versions from my pics. Hope no one minds, but the artist's are only getting the revenue from my payment and I'd feel bad about copies getting out.

Up first is this amazingly detailed picture of the Firefly ship Serenity. Most of you already knew that, right? This comes from Chilam and I picked it up from the convention's Art Auction. I chose to pay the direct buy price, since I never seem to have any luck when I try to get something by bidding. Now I just have to pick up a frame for it sometime.


There were lots of really talented independent comic artists at V-Con this year. These next two pieces were printed on 4 X 6 inch photo paper and represent two of our favorite video games. These were drawn by comicker Angela Melick. You can check out her other work in her online comic Wasted Talent. No frames for these ones, I think they're going to become part of our growing collection of refrigerator art.

Sushi Dragon artist Lindsay Broadway's table is one of my favorite stops in the Dealer's Room at V-Con. This year all I picked up was the free sticker that's at the top of this picture. Below that are two magnets from Sushi Dragon that I purchased at a past V-con. I also have a necklace charm with one of her dragons, but it was too small to photograph well. I know the web page in the link isn't completed, but you can click on the DeviantArt, samanayrs and glassgryphs buttons at the bottom of the page to see more of her work. Personally I just love all the bright colours and the original look of her critters.





This picture comes from a t-shirt that I picked up in the Artist's Alley courtesy of Vigilant Comics. Some of my friends and I have an in-joke about ducs so the drawing of a monster gobbling up the ducklings at the end of the line tickled my funny bone. Sorry, to the uninitiated, I won't be explaining the joke. Hopefully you'll see the picture's charm anyway.

This last picture is "Chance Meeting" by James F. Beveridge. Something about this really appealed to me. It reminds me a bit of Wall-E. I was considering picking up a print of it from the Art Auction, but I had to forgo it due to a shortage of cash. It wasn't until I got home that I realized a full-colour version had been printed onto the backs of the V-Con 34 Program book. The paper quality obviously isn't as good as a real print, but it is approx. 8 X 11 inches and will probably look quite nice if I pick up a mat board and frame for it.

So that's my shopping experience at V-Con 34. We also went to quite a few panels and heard some great guest speakers this year including Tanya Huff (author of the Blood Ties novels which were later turned into a TV Series of the same name) and Christine Willes (who played the memorable and hilarious Dolores Herbig on the TV series Dead Like Me).

Can't Stop the Serenity!

"There are two ways to fight a battle like ours. One is to whisper in the ear of the masses, try subtlely and gradually to change the gender expectations and mythic structures of our culture. That's me. The other is to step up and confront the thousands of atrocities that are taking place around the world on an immediate, one-by-one basis. That's a great deal harder, and that's Equality Now. It's not about politics; it's about basic human decency." -- Joss Whedon

I'm taking a detour from the usual crochet and crafty talk to tell you a little about a charity event that's very important to me. Each June, on or near Joss Whedon's birthday, thousands of fans gather in movie theaters around the world to watch a little movie Joss made called Serenity. Proceeds from the day's screening go to Equality Now, Joss Whedon's charity of choice. In 2006, Can't Stop the Serenity raised over $65,000 for Equality Now. In 2007, that number went up to $114,000. This year the goal is to raise $155,000 and host events in 55 cities globally.

If you're a fan of the projects that I feature on this site then I'm guessing that you're probably also a fan of something Joss has done whether it's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly or his recent work in the comics Astonishing X-Men or Runaways. Attending a Can't Stop the Serenity screening is a way to give a little something back for all the wonderful things Joss has given us. Plus, you get to see Serenity on the big screen again. How cool is that?

I will be attending the screening that's taking place on June 22 in Vancouver. To keep up with the planning and order tickets for that screening visit the Vancouver Charity Screening of "Serenity" blog. To find out where else in the 'verse screenings are taking place in 2008 or how you can help host an event in your area, visit Can't Stop the Serenity.

Need a little more incentive to get out of the house and meet fellow Joss fans? Take a few minutes to check out Equality Now and the amazing work they do throughout the world or go to YouTube and watch Joss Whedon's Equality Now Speech. It's only 8 minutes and I guarantee it will make you laugh at least once. It may also inspire you to act. Attend a screening. Make a donation to Equality Now. Tell others about the event.



Want the Pattern?

Finally, I'd hate to send anyone off to a screening underdressed. You can make your own knit Jayne Hat using this free pattern available on Craftster that was created by Emisanboo or this one that's available through the Vancouver/Firefly Serenity Meetup Group.

See, it always comes back to crafty stuff in the end!