Sprite Stitch Board!

I made a shirt for each of my girls, a mario 3 green turtle for my youngest, and mario 3 princess peach for my oldest. I stole the idea from benjibot They LOVE them, and I think they turned out great for my first try. I used 14 count waste canvas. The stuff is kind of a pain, but ya get used to it... I'm already doing another princess for a neice.

Oh man, I've always wondered about getting cross stitched works onto t-shirts. What a great idea. I bet they loved their new shirts!

You did a great job at making it seem as if the work was accomplished freehanded on the fabric.

I'm honored to be counted as an inspiration and you did a bang up job on these guys.

As it turns out, a friend is "in the family way" and has requested some onesies for the forthcoming young'n. She said the Mario series is a favorite, so I'll probably be doing some SMB3 characters next too.

It's not freehand precisely. She (and I) used waste canvas which is a very loose weave Aida fabric that you place inside your hoop along the fabric to guide your stitching. Once completed, you painstakingly pull the waste fabric out thread by thread (it isn't as hard as it sounds). Once I get around to making more I'll post a tutorial.

how long would you say it takes to remove the waste fabric on a single sprite like these?

Thanks for all the kind words !
I used waste fabric on both of those (and another one I'm doing now) and its a breeze. It is a pain to remove all the strands, and I would recommend removing the horizontal ones first that way the vertical ones come out easier. All in all it took about 15-20 minutes to get em all out I'd say. But man were my fingers sore. If I keep doing these I'm going to have to come up with something to clamp onto the strands to hold it so my fingers dont hurt. One other thing, make sure you are super careful and never just pull really hard to get it out. One on of my test pieces when I did that it actually screwed up the stitches (luckily I learned that before I did a production unit )

Two words: needlenose pliers. Works like a charm. I've got one of those Gerber multitools, and my new Victorinox has an even smaller set on them that should work even better.

The instructions suggest wetting the entire thing. That might help, but I wasn't able to notice any discernible improvements. Though for something this small it really isn't too much hassle. Definitely start with the direction with the fewest stitches though, e.g. if it's a standard upright character pull out the horizontal ones first.