Title: Sprite Stitch Banner
Date Completed: April 2010
Design: Lord Libidan
Count: 14
Colors: 1
Canvas: Black
Video Game: Space Invaders
 
When I first started cross stitching, I was a manbroiderer, or a male embroiderer. Back then in 2009 it simply wasn’t a thing. Even now a decade later, people are still shocked that there are male stitchers out there. So when I first wanted to explore my new hobby online, there wasn’t much choice.
&nsbp;
Now, that isn’t to say people were hostile; far from it, but being male always raised eyebrows and you got the whole slog of questions about being a bloke. But that wasn’t the case with SpriteStitch. A website devoted to cross stitching geekery, being a bloke really didn’t matter to anyone. In part, this might have been due to the website creator being a bloke too. To them, it was nothing.
 
But it was special to me. So I wanted to give back. The site was going through a bit of a refresh so I designed a simple banner for the home page. For me, I wasn’t super into the idea of massive cross stitch patterns that I would later take on, so I wanted simple and fast. But I also wanted something that was a bit me. At the time, using pixel-based games was the only way to make a cross stitch, as the wealth of awesome cross stitch software wasn’t a thing. So by hand, I drew out a pattern, the only pattern I’ve drawn by hand, and stitched it up before I got to sign off on it. What can I say, I was devoted.
 
Luckily the idea was liked and it was up on the homepage for about 8 years, when I, after becoming a moderator on the forums, a blogger on the homesite, and a co-author on a Star Trek cross stitch book with the website owner, finally removed it.