Pixel Stitches

When I was nine years old, my lifelong ambition was to be a hermit and live in the mountains of Switzerland. While my friends today would agree that I've achieved the hermit part - I'm shy and very anti-social for a number of reasons - I have yet to find a cave to my liking in the Swiss Alps. Thank goodness for that too, as I might have missed seeing one of my teenage crushes grow into an amazing actor and also a hilarious Internet meme. More on that in a bit.

Part of the reclusive life for me involves me doing a lot of "old lady" activities - sewing while listening to Edith Piaf and Billie Holiday, for example. I can strongly relate to Owen Wilson's character in 'Midnight in Paris' - always feeling like I should have been born in another era. At the beginning of summer, I decided I wanted to do another grandmother-ish hobby - cross-stitching. I knew that I wanted to have some kind of art to display along with my purses and bags at the craft shows, and I had done cross-stitching before when I was younger. At first I thought I might do some funny & inspirational quotes, but that didn't really capture my interest. Then, while browsing through Regretsy, a hilarious website that showcases some unbelievable (both good and bad... but mostly bad) items on Etsy, I read about MyPhotoStitch.com. This is a website that allows you to upload any photograph and then turns it into a cross-stitch pattern, for free. I went nuts when I saw it. I went through several of my hard drives and tried several different photographs to stitch, when suddenly I had a brilliant idea. Any image, hmm? What about.... well, I'll let the pictures do the talking. It starts with a rather creepy eyeless face....

Then it starts to get strangely good-looking....

Yowza. That would be the actor Ryan Gosling. If you are unfamiliar with him... well, you're more of a hermit than I am. Probably best known for being in 'The Notebook', but in the past few years his popularity exploded with the 'Hey Girl' internet meme - turning him into the ultimate ladies' man. Here are a few of my favorite 'Hey Girl' websites:

http://fuckyeahryangosling.tumblr.com/

Where it all began.

http://fuckyeahgoslingshakes.tumblr.com/

Shakespearean Ryan Gosling

http://handmaderyangosling.tumblr.com/

My favorite before it ended, Handmade Ryan Gosling.

You didn't think I was going to stop with the last image, did you? Oh no, it gets better:

Yeah... I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to sell/part with this, it's just too awesome. It took a little over two weeks of free time to do. One thing I noticed during those two weeks is that I don't own a single Ryan Gosling movie. Not even 'The Notebook', which I'm sure is breaking some kind of womanly law. I need to fix that.

Once I have a few more cross-stitch samples (I have TONS of ideas), I will be opening an art section in my shop called 'Pixel Stitches'. For now though, I need to make some more bags - I was completely obsessed with getting this done and I haven't been in the studio in far too long. At least for now I'll have Ryan Gosling in there to keep me company as I sew and belt out French gibberish with Edith.

#crossstitch #embroidery #ryangosling #heygirl