EarthBound stitching

Last week was a doozy -- I just returned from Duke and am energized and optimistic about the OTS project I am working on.  It was a hectic, but very productive trip.  I will download my pictures from the last few adventures and post about them soon.

In the meantime, I have finished a cross-stitch project that I have been working on for a while.  It is a scene from my favorite video game -- Earthbound.  It depicts a scene with the four heroes (Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo) in the Dusty Dunes desert as they meet a lonely black sesame seed.  It sounds weird, but it really makes sense in the context of the story!  This cross-stitch comprises 10,956 stitches and took a few months (of on-and-off stitching) to complete.  I put it in a little IKEA frame and thought that it would be cool to color the mat with colored pencils to extend the scene.  I really like how it turned out and now I have to find a place on the wall to hang it.

Super Mario Bros. 3 cross-stitch IV

Here is another progress picture of my Super Mario Bro. 3 World 5 map. I really like how it is turning out and I have made a little more progress since I took this picture about a month ago.

However, at this point, I am stuck! I have run out of blue, black, and green embroidery thread and there are no craft stores in DC where I can buy more thread! It is kind of absurd. There are a couple of art stores around here, but no place I can get craft supplies (like a Michael's or Ben Franklin). It is really lame -- the closest craft store that I could find is out in Rockville (1.5 hours away by metro/bus). Well...I think I will take my cross-stitch home with me to Washington so that I can stock up on thread at Ben Franklin and maybe finally finish this project!

Super Mario Bros. 3 cross-stitch III

It's been quite a while since I worked on this cross-stitch project. I had put it away for many, many months while working on my dissertation in Miami and during the move to DC. I took it out of the trunk a couple of weeks ago and felt like doing some stitching to relax at night and I have made a little bit of progress. (I have actually made more progress than what is pictured here, but that will be shown in another post. I took this picture right when I took the stitching out of storage). Woo-hoo, cross-stitching is fun!

Super Mario Bros. 3 cross-stitch II

Here are another couple of photos of my Super Mario Bros. 3 cross-stitch of world 5. I haven't stitched in a while, but here you can see some progress being made on the map.

Super Mario Bros. 3 cross-stitch

It's been a little quiet on the blogging front here recently due to tons of dissertation deadlines that I have. I am finishing up the bulk of my writing with my full dissertation needing to be done in about 2 weeks -- stressful! Anyway, I found some pictures of a work-in-progress cross-stitching project that I have been working on when I need to take a little break from work. I am stitching a screenshot from one of my favorite Nintendo games -- Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES. I've loved this game ever since I saw it in The Wizard and I played it with my friends when I was little. The pixels of the video game translate very well into cross-stitch and it is turning out nice. When done, it will be a map of world 5 -- sky world.
These are the first work-in-progress pictures that I took a long time ago. I am much further than this now, but I thought I would post these to show how I started. I will show more pictures as I work along on this, but right now the project is in a drawer so that I don't get distracted and only work on my dissertation!