Tag: Cross Stitch

  • Almost UV light from RGBW LEDs

    Almost UV light from RGBW LEDs

    So it turns out the RGBW LED light strip in my living room has some almost-UV component to its blue light. It is almost UV enough to make some things fluoresce quite vivid colours.

  • Zen and the art of Cross Stitch

    Zen and the art of Cross Stitch

    “What did you do in the cold dark winter of 2022/23?”
    “Oh I took up cross stitch”

    Yeah so my partner likes making crafty things, and she does cross stitch. Although it’s a certain style of it. This isn’t doilies and pretty houses with quotes and nonsense under it. This is slightly more NSFW.

    Look how happy that sloth is!

    I was idly watching her make one and curiosity got the better of me – there was very little to watch on TV – after 30 seconds of explaining I was off making an equally NSFW picture of my own…

    I thnk that crocodile needs to be a logo

    This is a bit like those arty YouTube channels where they try a new skill, fart around for a bit, then try some large project to show off. Sure, there’s a certain amusement from stitching a dainty little creature that’s shouting obscenities but once you’ve done one the fun wears off a bit.

    Then I had a thought. During Christmas I was helping out at a local Christmas activities club, and one of the distraction activities was Hama beads. Those little cylindrical pellets of plastic waste you arrange into a picture, iron and have a wonky looking thing that passes as a bad coaster.

    There’s something quite nice about having to concentrate really hard on such a simple task. Copying a design takes zero effort, but getting adult sausage fingers to manipulate tiny bits of plastic requires conscious efforts. Patiently re-starting because you sneeze and flick your design onto the floor, knowing that’s the only option is also quite relaxing.

    Makes a 100% total opposite difference to trying to think really hard about programming, or teaching kids how to program. There’s nothing to compile, nothing to debug. And unlike drawing, there’s no real skill involved so you can’t do it badly.

    It appears cross stitch is the same, just without the slightly worrying contribution to increased plastic waste. The needle goes in the hole, it doesn’t stab your finger. Maybe you stitch away for half an hour, and realise you started from the wrong hole and now have to patiently unpick it and start over without getting upset and giving up.

    I decided I’d do a loading screen from my favourite ZX Spectrum game Rick Dangerous. Here’s the screen

    If you listen hard, you can still hear the loading… or is that tinitus?

    It’s 256×192 pixels. That’s 49,152 pixels. A cross stitch cross is made from two stitches. It’s a lot of poking a needle through a hole. I’ve got this far after a month.

    Cat for scale, no bananas in the house

    I’ll finish it eventually, it’s a nice alternative to staring at social media. I dipped into Facebook the other day, nothing exciting is going on. I have a new phone, I set up the wrong account in Twitter and just uninstalled the app.

    Take up weird obscure hobbies, the complete opposite to your normal activities. It is quite refreshing.