Lucky Star Folding Paper, Dork Stitch Style!

Hello! Today I wanted to post something a little different here, so I'm posting some printable origami star folding strips, rather than the standard cross stitch pattern. True, origami stars, or lucky stars, have very little to do with embroidery, but they're still crafty and fun. Plus, if you fill a big see-through container with them, as I've been trying to do for the past couple of days, the whole thing looks very cute, which is always a plus. The only problem with these stars is that folding enough of them to fill something up is extremely time consuming. I folded them for around two hours tonight, and probably for another two today, and have barely made enough of them to fill the bottom of the plastic Chinese take out box I would like to have loaded with them. This isn't a major complaint, but because of that, it makes things more fun to have star paper to use that's interesting or strange or cute. Because of this, I made myself two custom sheets of printable origami star strips featuring various characters from SNK games. (This reflects a sad level of fascination with these games, yes, but if you are a regular reader of this blog and surprised by what I've done, I am not sure what to say.)

At any rate, since this is sort of a craft-y blog, I decided to share these papers in case any of the rest of you wanted to try folding origami stars, or were in need of some new and brightly colored paper to fold them with! (If you've never made them before, Origami-fun.com has a really good instructions sheet, clear enough that I managed to follow it late at night on a day where I'd taken an exam. Read it here!)As my skill at drawing straight lines is not nearly where it should be, I used a template made by Deviant Art's Blackheartqueen, who can be found by clicking on her name! I then used Paint.NET to fill in the template with sprites and bright colors. They aren't the classiest looking star strips in the world, since I'm just learning to use the program I made them on, but from what I did this morning, they fold quite nicely. Without any further chattering, here are the star papers!

This is the first of the papers I made, featuring some charming pastels and the following sprites, from right to left. If it's not otherwise noted, I ripped the sprites myself.
Nakoruru, from the Samurai Shodown RPG- Sprite from The Fighter's Generation
Athena, from KOF 2001 Mobile- Sprite from The Sprite Database
Janne, from World Heroes Jet 2 for Game Boy
Whip, from SNK Gals Fighter- Sprite from The Sprite Database
Cathy, from Top Hunter- Sprite from Game Sprite Archives
Athena, from, oddly enough, Athena

 

Though I just finished this much bolder set of origami star strips, I have no doubt that its quality parallels that of the original! Just like before, here are the sprites I used and where I got them.

Lilly Kane, from King of Fighters 2000- Sprite from The Fighter's Generation

Nakoruru, from the Game Boy version of Samurai Shodown

Mature, from the Game Boy version of King of Fighters '97

Mai, from KOF 2001 Mobile- Sprite from The Sprite Database

Leona, from Metal Slug Mobile- Sprite from The Sprite Database

Cham Cham, from the Samurai Shodown RPG- Sprite from The Fighter's Generation

After all of those shiny images and exciting source crediting, I'm sure that all of you are now super-excited about folding origami stars, for which I don't blame you! If you do fold them, I'd love to see photos, just like with the cross stitch patterns, and will gladly plaster them all over this blog. As for now, I'm going to go find something else crazy and exciting to do, so, until then, have a nice rest of the week!

NES Athena Cross Stitch Patterns and Addressing Some Common Search Terms

Hello! Today, I've taken allergy medication and eaten a lot of sugar, so I cannot promise coherence in this post. Lately, however, I've been looking at Webmaster Tools on Google, which tells me what search terms this blog will appear as a result for. A lot of them, like "pokemon cross stitch patterns" or "ponyo pattern" or even "mai shiranui bootleg" make sense to me. I have decided to address a few of the stranger search terms that this blog pops up under, though, mostly because I'm a little bored and it sounded like fun.

1. "How Old Is Amy Rose?" For the past couple of weeks, probably corresponding with the silhouette pattern I posted of Amy Rose, this has been the most searched thing that my blog comes up under. Therefore, I looked it up, and Amy Rose is 12. Exciting, right?

2. "World Heroes 2 Janne Neo Geo 1 Credit" I am not sure why this is searched so often, though I know that my blog comes up under this search because I have 2 patterns of Janne from World Heroes 2 posted here, though they're from a Game Boy version of the game, and because I'm always going on about Neo Geo games. There are also nifty Youtube videos of people completing World Heroes games as Janne with one credit, which is sort of cool. I have to say, though, that despite my general ineptitude at playing World Heroes, I generally play really well as Janne and have beaten a couple of the games (the first one and Jet, I think) as her on the PS2 anthology with only one credit. With anyone else in the entire game, I usually get decimated in stage 2 or 3, but with Janne, it goes much better. It's quite the marketable skill, right?

3. "Yabbering" I totally do that, and I like that word, too, so I think it's sort of spiffy that my blog comes up under this search term.

4. "A Man Turning Into Amy Rose" I am not really sure what to say about this, other than that I've quickly learned that people search for strange things in regards to Amy Rose. I have also seen "Amy Rose Turning Into A Man" pop up as a search term on my webmaster tools, which seems just as odd to me.

Anyway, I'm done with all of that nonsense for now, since I've realized that I don't have as much to say about search terms as I originally thought that I did. I do, however, have three cross stitch patterns of SNK's Athena, taken from her self-titled NES game rather than anything King of Fighters, to post here today. I can't say that Athena is a good game, or even an entirely playable one, but the sprites from it are really cute and utilize the often inexplicable ploy of 8-bit fan service, so I decided to recolor them and make some patterns for this blog!

 

 

I've been working on stitching these, so I can definitely say that they are quick and easy to stitch unless you're doing them on 22 count fabric, which was my inexplicable choice for the project. For ease of stitching them as a set, however, I made sure that the floss colors and symbols matched up on each chart and did my best to find a different pose for each outfit.

If you decide to stitch or otherwise make any or all of these Athenas, or anything else from this blog, for that matter, send in a photo and I'll post it right here on Dork Stitch! Either way, I hope that all of you have a nice week, and I'll be posting again with more nifty patterns and finished projects soon!

An 8-Bit RPG Style Lady Gaga Cross Stitch Pattern? Of Course the Internet Needs It!

Hello! Yesterday, when I was at Wal-Mart, I bought a graph paper notebook, which allows me to draw patterns while I'm sitting and watching TV, riding in a car, and doing several other things that would not allow me to turn on a computer and use Pattern Maker. Depending on your perspective, this is either a good or a bad thing. I see it as a good thing, because it allows me to do things like decide that I really need to make an 8-bit Dragon Quest style standee of Lady Gaga and then immediately sit down and draw a pattern out so that I can do just that. Some people may see it as a bad thing for exactly the same reason. Either way, that's what you're stuck with tonight.

I suppose I should explain what led to the Lady Gaga sprite and the subsequent cross stitch pattern, but it's really not that exciting. My sister and I were going to watch a rented copy of the Amityville Horror, but it had been watched and cleaned so many times that the disc had no grooves left on it, rendering the disc unreadable by either of the DVD players in our living room. This left us at the mercy of our television, which was fine for a while, since Boomerang had a Smurfs marathon on, which I normally find quite amusing. After one episode, however, where the Smurfs got lost at sea and wackiness followed, they started showing the crappy Johan and Peewit episodes, so it was decided that the channel needed to be changed. TV was not very good today, though, so my sister and I flipped it over to Fuse, where they seemed to be showing all of Lady Gaga's videos on a loop, watched a rotation of them, and then shut the TV off.

I told you it was a boring story, didn't I? Anyway, here's the Lady Gaga pattern in question, including a pixel-y hair bow made of hair, in all of its NES style glory.

Though I say this about a lot of my patterns, this one really is quick and easy to stitch. I didn't draw this pattern until after dinner, but I was still able to finish it before 10 o'clock. Part of the reason it took that long is because I was playing around with colors and backstitching, too, so it would likely be much faster in someone else's hands. The small size and lack of detail also makes it ideal for color changing, allowing for an easy transformation from a bizarre pop star to some other girl with a huge hair bow. Because I stitched her tonight, I can also provide an example of how this looks once it's completed, as seen on my illustrious Deviant Art page. (If you want to see this on Deviant Art, just follow this link, though you're really not missing anything by seeing it here.)

If this blog entry has made you feel that you too desperately need an inch tall cross stitched Lady Gaga, then send me a photo of your work and it'll be all over this blog in future entries! Otherwise, I'll be posting here again soon with more patterns, as I have quite a few right now, and work from readers. Until then, have a good week!

A Very Specific Hello Kitty Cross Stitch Pattern

Hello! It has been a while since I've posted, but in the time since I wrote here last, I've built up a healthy reserve of patterns, which is always a plus. For today, however, I decided to post the biggest of these, since in terms of this blog, it seems like there is very little point in building up to anything, aside from the eventual and, of course, monumental, Top Hunter patterns day. (I've been talking about that since starting the blog, and it will someday happen. All of my patterns are of Cathy rather than Roddy, though, so it's a bit one sided so far.) What I mean to say, then, is that everyone who really wanted patterns of SNK's Athena from her NES game debut, because I'm sure there's piles of you, has to wait a day or two to see them. Though I have three of them ready to go, today's pattern is of the ever popular Hello Kitty!

Before I post this pattern, I must say that I am quite the fan of Hello Kitty. I have multiple T-shirts, plushies (including some with her head sticking out of sushi rolls), old Game Boy games, purses, keychains, and even a deck of playing cards featuring the mascot, all in the name of cuteness. Because this is Dork Stitch, however, a simple Hello Kitty pattern is not enough. Therefore, I have found, at Nana-Nana.net, images of Hello Kitty stationery where she is dressed up as the two lead characters from Ai Yazawa's manga, Nana. Using that as a basis for a cross stitch pattern seemed like a pretty good idea to me, and even if you aren't a fan of Nana, I think that the cuteness should be able to stand on its own merits. Plus, if you change the colors, it could be pretty well removed from being anything involving Nana at all! Anyway, here is the pattern.

There isn't much that's very odd about this pattern, so I don't have much to say about it, other than that the general lack of detail would make it fun to stitch on 11 count fabric. Color changes and those sorts of things should be easy to manage with it, though, so with this pattern, anything, or at least anything within the realm of this pattern, is possible!

Just like I always say at the end of a post, if you stitch this or any other pattern found on Dork Stitch, I would love to see your finished project and will post it here, on this blog, for the whole internet to see! As for myself, I'm hoping to finish a cross stitch of a fighting game sprite tonight, so I'd better quit typing while I'm still ahead. I hope that all of you have a good weekend and will post again fairly soon!