On My (Sessler's) Soapbox

I did this piece back in 2009. I may have posted it before but I'm not looking through old posts and chances are good I was probably drunk anyway.

Aside from stitching and going "way back" to the original NES, I am a video game fanatic. Yes, stitching, being a father and trying to be a grown up have slowed down my advances but I do try to get a good shooter or old-school reissue (Dreamcast Collection for 360, anyone)? So back when I watched a lot of G4TV I had an itunes subscription to "Sessler's Soapbox". A place for one of my favorite journalists/TV Personalities to say whatever he wanted. How could I not love that? I mean, what do you think this blog is?!?

So in 2009 X-Play/Adam Sessler gave a 5-out-of-5 review to some game I still have not played. Naturally he was attacked by the idiots who often spend a lot of their time bitching about game reviews and for once The Reviewer Struck Back! He called several posters out by name, read the dribble they left online and then asked if they fucked their mothers! The comments by the posters were not only a disagreement of the review but an attack on the reviewer's journalistic integrity. He closed the podcast with this advice for those who he called out and their ilk:



I know it's not my most detailed work but A) this is wordy as fuck! B) I didn't really know how to decorate it so I went with little cross stitches in the orange and blue of the show. X-stitches for X-Play...do you see what I've become?

I've always thought, especially when your job is to give people your opinion, this would be awesome on an office wall. I finally got the balls to show it off to Mr. Sessler in the only way I could think to: Twitter. He responded in kind. He called the piece awesome and me The Cross Stitching Man (I'll take it). He also was receptive to my sending it to him! So it goes out today and I really hope I get a picture of him with it (yes, I asked). But honestly, the attention joy of the experience has been awesome. I truly thank Mr. Sessler for being awesome, open and The Man to his fans!

Because I Need A Little Hope

Windy is still in the hospital and the doctors have started throwing out the prognosis' no one really wants to hear.

After finishing Hell and realizing I did not have the tools, nor the funds for the tools, to move on the the next project I anticipated doing I went back to the .img (that's image file for those not nerdy enough). I knew my next project was going to be closer to 25 colors and images of people, castles, aliens and cars. I also am REALLY digging the idea of stitching a portrait of a buddy of mine. I saw a pic of min a while back and the idea has been in my head for a while.

So some common ground was needed. I found an .img in my .img which was more portrait-ish then anything I have previously done. At 10,000+ stitches in 13 colors it seemed like it might be right up my style . So on 2/15/11 I started "A New Hope" and this is where I am at now:


The detail in the eye area is killing me with single stitches of a single color. But I am bring a good boy and following direction...for now.

The other markings are pencil. Because there is so much blocking in the same color I have found it helps me breaze through if I just mark it off. Then all I need is the project, thread and needle. No space for color charts and lists or what-have-you. So the face is generally at home and the rest is while out...or home and tired of looking at the details. Here's an earlier pick of just the four main colors.