Cross-Stitch Macaw

My mother has a blue-and-gold macaw. Isn't he beautiful?

He is not a fan of me. Below is a picture of him trying to kill me. Look at his colors!

For Christmas last year, Jon gave me this wonderful software program called Stitches. Stitches takes a photo and generates a cross stitch pattern. It's very configurable. You can specify the size of the pattern, the number of colors, it does everything!

It's easy to use on your computer too because it creates a giant pdf. I love working with a single pdf. Before I was using patterns printed on paper and you have to line up the different papers. I wasted so much time on matching up the papers.

After eight months of work, I completed a cross-stitch version of my mom's macaw:

I used 150 different colors. It was so much fun to create each section and then step back and see how it forms a shape. The best transformations came from the tongue and the claws.

I had the picture framed.

Mom reports that her bird is very suspicious of the picture because it's bigger than him. He'll look at it and bob his head.

For my next project I want to do the cockatiels. I want to capture them in their signature poses. When I think of Conner, I picture him bowing down and cocking his head slightly to look at me. When I think of Audrey, I think of him standing straight up with his huge crest or bowing down, wings quivering in a flirty pose.

I'm trying to get those pictures but so far all I'm capturing is distress.

Poor Audrey!