Bring on the Geek (Part the First)

Wow, sometimes life just gets kinda busy, huh?  I've been intending to write a new post ages ago, but never made it to the bottom of my growing to do list.  What have I been up to, you ask?  Well, my husband and I finally bit the bullet and ordered lovely bookshelves (and an unrelated wine cabinet).  I am over the moon to finally get my books out of boxes (they'd been boxed up for nine months and as a woman who holds a BA in English, that's the stuff of nightmares). 

I've also started planting flowers around our new home...hopefully they won't all die.  I've never before planted flowers, and all attempts my mother made to get me into the garden as a child/teen was met with staunch refusals from me.

In the midst of all this, I have started several projects, but not actually finished any.  But, I do have one that I can show you as the first of four parts.

I had originally intended this to be a stand alone gift for my husband on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of our first date.  But, I was too excited to wait, so I shared it with him and then decided to expand upon my idea.

You probably want to know what I'm talking about, huh?

Well, a while ago I stumbled on an image of a cross stitch that was a heart made up of Tetris pieces.  My husband LOVES Tetris, so I jumped at the idea of making this.  However, when I actually looked at the picture, I was dismayed to discover that many of the pieces were fake pieces (Tetris shapes, as you probably know come in specific arrangements of four blocks...this pattern called for using one and two block pieces and I'm too OCD for that).

So, I sat down and spent about three hours figuring out how to put the pieces together.  I made it more complicated by assigning a specific color to each piece, and obviously I didn't want two of the same color to touch.  (I'd originally made it even more complicated by having a yellow pieces and a purple piece and I HATE those colors together...so I didn't want them to touch either.  I simplified my life by changing purple into pink!)

Once completed, my Tetris heart was just over 1-1/2 square inches.  Then genius struck!  I would turn this, and three other geeky objects turned cross-stitch, into coasters!  I have an empty set of picture coasters that are perfect to use with small cross-stitched projects.

So, without further ado:

Geek Coaster 1:  Tetris Heart

It's not the greatest picture, but you get the, um, picture.  :)

 

Key: 
-Each colored square is a cross stitch in that color
-Thick black lines around the heart are double stranded black back stitch
-Thin black lines separating pieces are single stranded black back stitch
-Dotted lines are single strand back stitch in the color of the piece (i.e. pink Tetris piece means pink detail stitching; red Tetris piece means red stitching, etc.)

*NOTE:  Each back stitch was the length of two cross stitches, helped create the block look I was looking for.


Up Next:  Rubics Cube Geek Coaster...also, eventually I will make those wine bottle lanterns and make more crocheted loveliness!







Happy Crafting!