The Twelve Dogtors

Apparently I'm on a bit of a Doctor Who kick right now.    A friend and I were chatting about how there are so many neat Peanuts/Doctor Who mash-ups so I started looking at images and being amused.  Some I'd seen before but I hadn't looked for a while and came across The Twelve Dogtors, which I found particularly neat.   
I decided to turn the image into a cross stitch... and many hours and weeks later I've converted it... but it will be a while before I can stitch it as I'm still working on Super Mario 3 World 4.  I'm sixty-five percent done, so I am getting there!
If you'd like to stitch it, here's the pattern.   I own no rights to this and creative talent is not mine (though I do confess I changed the twelfth doctor... gave him his sonic sunglasses).   Do NOT take this pattern and put it for sale on etsy. That would be illegal in more ways than one.
This pattern is compatible with Pattern Keeper.  The pattern is very large so I would suggest a pretty high stitch count, like 24 or 25. 

Doctor Who Cross Stitch Patterns

I will confess that I have far too many interests in the crafting realm.   Someday I may be smart and give one up so that I can actually accomplish all the projects I'd like to accomplish, but where is the fun in that?
I enjoy cross stitch.  The main caveat is that I like big patterns... and they take a nice chunk of time... and since cross stitch is not functional (as in you can sleep under it or use it) the allotted time it receives is when I watch a movie... which isn't too terribly often and half the time I decide to work on making birthday cards... so you know... cross stitch doesn't happen too often...
But I enjoy looking at patterns though I don't buy unless I am actually going to work on it and since I rarely finish a project all I do is window shopping, but sometimes I mess around in PC Stitch and make a pattern... which is what I've done with two Van Gogh Doctor Who images. 
Now, these patterns I didn't really do any work on. The mock up looks good so I think they're fine... colors may be off a bit so you might need to change them... but I thought I would share the patterns here.  They're free as I don't own rights to the images so selling these would be rather wrong.
The patterns do work in Pattern Keeper.  The mock-up looks a bit odd on both of them and doesn't match what PC Stitch shows me but I have read that the PK mock-up isn't entirely accurate.
 Exploding Tardis PDF
Van Gogh Tardis PDF

Enjoy and post your finished photo in the comment! I want to see how they turn out!

The Tardis

The Tardis received a post many moons ago, but not its own post!   My niece loves Doctor Who and for her birthday her mother asked me if I thought I could make her a Tardis quilt.   I said, "Sure!" to her and "What have I gotten myself into?" to myself!    I couldn't find a pattern I liked.   I had no experience designing a pattern (at that point).  I hate math.  Math hates me.  What on earth could possibly go wrong?

After many headaches and frustration I designed the Tardis.  It's seen a few changes here and there... I think I have made it four times or so!     I do wish I were better at operating my quilt program as I'd love to play around with  the size of the Tardis so I could easily make it smaller, but whatever, it's bigger on the inside anyway, so why does it need to be large?
If you want to sew your own that pattern is for sale here or if you want to custom order one send me an e-mail.

The lettering has been tweaked a few times.  I used to piece it together... then I appliqued it together and then stitched the "Public Call" in the center...  the words on the door are printed via my printer.  I liked to stitch a wood grain onto the Tardis...

Eggggs! Egggs! Exterminate!

Back in the day of the classic Doctor Who Daleks weren't too scary.   I mean, all one had to do was go up a few flights of steps and hide around the corner and one was safe.   Daleks couldn't climb stairs.    Apparently the writers realized this and the new generation of Daleks can now fly.   Look out, you're about to be exterminated!

  Growing up my mother and older brothers would talk about Doctor Who and the Daleks.   By the time I came around and was old enough to watch it it was no longer on tv- or at least not available via bunny ears.   One day we discovered the library had a few vhs tapes (I feel as though I'm dating myself a bit...) and we checked them out.    I remember giggling when I saw the first episode with a Dalek in it and wondered how on earth it could be sooooooo terrifying!  That being said, the new and improved Daleks are definitely terrifying.
  I'd already made a bed quilt for my mother but also really wanted to make her a lap quilt for when she watched movies.     I wanted to create something unique and after seeing the large amount of Doctor Who fabric that was available I decided to create a Dalek.    That meant opening paint and drawing away... and a lot of erasing... and reworking, and "WHOA!  Jump back Loretta! That is *way* too large for a lap quilt!"   Finally I arrived upon this and it turned out really well- except for the one pixel I apparently grabbed the wrong 1.5" square and didn't realize it until I had the quilt pinned and ready for free motion quilting.   I left it there.  It made it even more unique.
 This pattern is available for sale at here.   The finished size is 50x50.   The pattern is mostly 1.5 strips with quite a number 1.5x1.5 blocks.    The pattern works left to right so if there are 10 black pixels in a row that means one will use a 10.5x1.5 strip instead of using ten 1.5x1.5 squares.  One would want a sonic screwdriver for that!     The background has a few large chunks to save on time, fabric, and thread.  It also really helps the the background pattern to stand out.

Quilting- another passion

Creating cards isn't the only craft I do... pretty much if it's a craft that interests me I'll give it a whirl and some crafts become addicting and others just don't catch.
One craft that has become addicting is quilting and then I took it to another level and began to make video game quilts.
The first video game quilt I constructed was a queen sized Legend of Zelda quilt.
   It was exceedingly time consuming to make, not only with the construction but also with creating the pattern.  Thankfully since then my wonderful husband wrote me a quilting program that will take an image and give me the amount of fabric I need to purchase.   This program saves me soooo much time- and frustration!
I generally construct the video game quilts using 1 1/2 inch blocks or strips.   I really don't have the patience to make a video game quilt one block at a time so if the color in a row is the same for seven pixels then I use a 7 1/2 x 1 1/2 inch strip.
Since Zelda I've created a Sonic baby quilt, a two-sided Kirby quilt, and a Mario quilt.  
I loved making the Sonic quilt.  I think I had the top thrown together in one day! How awesome is that?  It definitely makes me want to make more baby quilts and fewer bed-sized quilts. ~laughs~
The Mario quilt is the first video game quilt that I used the program my husband wrote for me.   That program is an amazing time saver and the accuracy for the amount of yardage needed is spot on... which I guess is why people love math.   The answer is always constant... unless you're me and then the answers always vary.     The entire quilt probably took about sixty hours worth of work.    I enjoyed it, but I was very happy to have the last block finished.   Because of the amount of time it took to assemble the blocks I kept the quilting very simply.  For the characters I sewed up and down to help give the characters a more pixelated look.  I also did this as it helps distract from the fact that I assemble the squares with strips and not 1 1/2 blocks.    For the background I did a simple stipple.    

Geekery doesn't stop with video game quilts.  I've also designed a Tardis quilt.    My sister-in-law asked my if I thought I could make a Tardis quilt for her daughter's sixteenth birthday.   I said yes and then went, "Wow.  This just might have been the dumbest thing I agreed to.   I have to create a pattern for this... this could be bad."
I did a lot of googling and found a few Tardis quilts that I like different aspects of and then incorporated those aspects into my pattern.  
It actually ended up not being as difficult as I thought it would be and I've made two Tardis quilts since then!