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Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Designing and Stitching "Siggy"

A very dear friend lost her constant companion over a month ago. A Miniature Pinscher, Siggy's loss was abrupt and unexpected. Needless to say, my friend was devestated.

Wanting to help her, I offered to design a cross stitch pillow for her. She sent me pictures of Siggy and gave her permission to share the process I used to create the pattern.

My first try at it was less than impressive. I stitched for two days straight and wasn't pleased with the colors. Back to the drawing board.

Have you ever heard of PicMonkey? It's a free online photo editor. I used it to crop, sharpen and resize one of the photos that touched my heart. It was important for me to capture the love I saw in Siggy's eyes.  Here's the picture after using PicMonkey:


Then I discovered a great online cross stitch pattern maker called My Photo Stitch. I had to play with it a little bit to come up with that "look".  This is the neatest software - it prints out the chart, color codes and breaks it up into nine sections for you.  You can choose up to 50 colors of thread you want for your design.

I've been stitching and stitching for a little over a week. Here is Siggy so far:

"Siggy" 6.5 x 6.5 inches (so far)

I'm hoping to complete Siggy this weekend so I can send it to my sweet friend next week. I'll keep you posted.

22 comments:

  1. Kim,
    So beautiful and so thoughtful of you!
    Thanks for the link to the site too.

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  2. Your depiction of Siggy is amazing! This is such a lovely gesture ")

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  3. SO very sweet! She will treasure this!

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  4. So sad to lose your baby , Siggy will always be there now for your friend to treasure.

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  5. What a thoughtful gift Kim. You really did a good job charting this and it's stitching up beautifully. I'm sure your friend will treasure it.

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  6. Oh Kim. I could just cry for your friend. What a blessing you are to your friend to do this. I love it. I love what you are doing. I do use PicMonkey all the time. I bookmarked My Photo Stitch. ;) Thank you!

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  7. So sweet! I'm sure she will treasure it.

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  8. Kim, this is fabulous! And thank you for sharing the link. Just yesterday I was thinking about trying to find a good website that makes cross-stitch patterns from photos. I am so sorry for your friend's loss. What a sweet treasure this will be. (((Hugs)))

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  9. Siggy is going to be fantastic, Kim.

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  10. Wow! I know this is going to be beautiful but your friend will be so touched not only by the stitching but by your generous heart! blessings, marlene

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  11. Fantastic! I'm sure your friend will be delighted :)

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  12. Wow, you're doing a beautiful job! This is so sweet of you. I'm sure your friend will love it! :D

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  13. Oh Kim that is such a sweet thing to do,you will make your friend very happy xx

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  14. Hello Kim,

    What a wonderful keepsake for your friend, you are the best friend a dog lover can have.

    Happy days.
    Bev.

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  15. What a wonderful idea!!! Love the look you are achieving in getting the photo just right for her!!! Great job hon!

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  16. Such a lovely thing to do for your friend. Isn't making patterns neat? I use an old freebie program (KG-Chart) for my works. The colors are always off but that's what a floss toss is for~ :D

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  17. That's a great photo conversion. I usually dislike computer generated charts intensely. (Don't mention the damn owl!) but this one is really good. Did you have to do a lot of tweaking?

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  18. looking lovely, your friend will be thrilled.

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  19. What a very thoughtful gift for your friend.

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  20. Wow!!!!, awesome art work Kim!!!!, it's going to be a treasure for your friend!

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