D.E.S.I.G.N. & Death of Rats

First of all lets start with what D.E.S.I.G.N. is: Designer Everybody Should Instantly Get to Notice. This month I have decided to start by introducing someone who makes the most wonderful patterns from a photo or an image for you that is not only completely accurate but at the same time, no matter how many colours used is always easy to read. This last bit is, as most of know, not the easiest of things to find in a pattern but my designer of choice for this month manages that with apparent ease.

"Who is this amazing designer?" I hear you ask. The designer is known as pinkythepink over on Deviant Art and Etsy, where you can buy a personally made chart just for you.

I will be honest and say that both patterns she made for me were prizes from stitching pirates competitions however she doesn't know I'm writing this post about her and didn't ask me to.

Longer term readers of my blog will have already seem Mike's Mushrooms - the WIP I am currently working on (YES, at last!!) This is where it was last May and you can already see how lifelike the pattern is. I had given pinky the image and requested only whole stitches, so no backstitching and no partial stitches - no size restriction. It is 180 stitches x 261 stitches and has 113 colours, normally that would be a nightmare to keep track of on the pattern. Pinky has a super clever trick: she uses more than one colour for the symbols and doesn't repeat them, which makes them nice and easy to spot on a pattern. I have not seen anyone else do that on a pattern.

Mushrooms by Muskeg on DeviantArt

This is the original artwork the pattern was made from - with the permission of the awesome Muskeg (aka Mike) - just so you can see how close the pattern is to the original.

A pattern of Pinky's that I have finished is Death of Rats, a Terry Pratchett Discworld novel character. I didn't put any restrictions on this pattern other than "please see if you can manage to make this work" so I got a load of partial stitches and backstitching, which just make the pattern perfect.

 

Death of Rats by Pika-la-Cynique on DeviantArt

As you can see for yourself the end result is pretty close to the original artwork, which is quite a feat for something of this size. The fabric used is Haunted from Picture This Plus which I also won from one of the stitching pirates competitions and was one of 2 fabrics I'd picked to use for him, though in the end my favourite for him just didn't work asn dark blue sparkly fabric jut doesn't show dark blue well.

Even though it was not in the original pattern I couldn't resist including some glow in the dark thread and just for fun I included some Kreinick grapefruit glow in the dark blending filament too - for that extra bit of glow. I also used a silver metallic blending filament for the scythe blade so that it would shimmer.

Colours used: 10 colours of DMC + Kreinik grapefruit glow in the dark blending filament & silver blending filament + Cosmo metallic for the backstitching along the scythe blade
Stitches used: Cross stitch (whole and fractional) and back stitch
Stitches: not sure, pattern doesn't say but I do know it's 54 stitches wide and 101 high.
Fabric: 28 ct Zweigart Cashel, hand dyed by Picture This Plus "Haunted"
Size: 3 1/2" x 6 1/2"/8.89cm x 16.51cm