Title: Neon Libidan
Date Completed: April 2021
Design: Lord Libidan
Count: 16
Canvas: Black
Colours: 7
Pop Culture: Neon
 
After finishing a whole series of cross stitches I moved onto completing some other hobbies, one of which was redecorating a room in my house. I’ve spoken before about using cross stitch in interior design, but I recently couldn’t get something out of my head that’s been in my cross stitch inspiration journal for a few years.
 
Back when I lived a lot closer to London I managed to find a place called Gods Own Junkyard, which is effectively a pub filled to the brim with neon. This is actually a super rare thing in London, which has never been a mecca for neon, however it dropped something in my brain that I new I had to copy.

Neon cross stitch really isn’t that new, and in fact, one of the first cross stitches I have in my inspiration journal is a neon by CrassCross, however, when looking at his work, I felt I could do something a little…more.
Whilst his work is clearly a neon sign, it lacked the bright reflection neon causes, and the fonts we often think of when we think of neon. In addition, I also thought about adding some effects to make it look like a flashing neon sign.
 

So I made a pattern! My first step was picking a great cross stitch font, and I made the pattern in a bright red hue. But I didn’t like it. In fact, I didn’t like it enough that I sat on the pattern for a month. Until I realized three things;
– It needed a new color
– It needed a better font
– And it needed a better pattern
Pretty damning for a pattern that’s all about one font in one color…
 
But that didn’t stop me!
I changed the color to the only color I know with ‘neon’ in the name; pink. I then changed the font to a single-line handwritten font (which is rarer in real neon but felt more realistic), and finally, I started to redesign the pattern. I say start as I came across a book called “A Bitch in Time – 30 Sarcastic Stitches for You to Stab“, which includes a neon pattern. I stole some ideas and came up with two cross stitches (one ‘on’ and one ‘off”).
I finally stitched it up, added some animated effects, and now I have my very own neon sign.