Steotchalong, Everybody!

Last month, my friend asked me if I was going to join this year’s Steotchalong. At first I was like “whaaaa?” but when I went to the website to check it out, I knew I had to join in.

As the picture says, this is the 4th Steotchalong. It is run by the lovely people at Steotch.com, Emily and Matt. Basically, each week they release part of the pattern. They tell you everything you need to know ahead of time, like thread colors, suggested fabric, and size of the finished piece. The patterns are released at midnight on Monday every week for 10 weeks. The new part of the pattern is clearly differentiated from the previous part, and you can keep up with the patterns every week or just stitch at your own pace. There is a forum on the site and a new thread is created every week when the new pattern is released. A word of warning though, the pattern is only available during the steotchalong1 So, if you want to make one, you’ll probably want to join in. Fortunately, it’s free to participate but you have the option to toss them some bucks if you like. I paid when I started and I will contribute again at the end, especially after seeing Emily’s post in the forum. Someone asked her how she designed the blends in this year’s pattern and she replied

“I do it all by hand (and eye), improvising as I go. I stitch, pick out, and restitch the whole thing a few times, until I think it looks right to me. No computer programs, just my eyeballs and a whole lotta patience.”

I can’t even get up the motivation to do the simple 3 to 4 color pattern I came up with,  and she’s over here hand-designing these awesome patterns! There is also a WIP contest. Post a picture of your WIP on one of their social media pages and you have a chance to win a cross stitch kit.

The first Steotchalong was in 2013 and featured Samuel L. Jackson.

The text could be customized. See more examples at the Steotchalong 1 page. Steotchalong 2 featured Snoopy and again, could be customized with a saying

Steotchalong 3, imo the best one so far, had Han Solo and Chewbacca.

More examples can be found in their YouTube video

I am totally bummed that I missed that one.

Anyway, there are only 4 weeks left! The final pattern will be posted on August 15th. I won’t spoil what the pattern is shaping up to be but it looks like another winner. I’ll make sure to post my finished product (providing I can get started on the blends) on my Instagram (GrumpyBatgirl). You can also see my other projects by checking out my hashtag ‘AngXS’

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