LA's trial blogger Sabrina starts off this week with a DIY custom hook rug project:
Parking. Breadsticks with your pizza. Trial sized shampoo. Few things in life are free.
That's why when our friend Scott (husband of famous designer Kim Myles ) told us that he got the design for his custom-made latch hook rug for free, we were skeptical...
After checking out Leftsource.com , we discovered that you can take any picture and turn it into a color-coded latch hook map, from which you can create your own Man-O-Lisa masterpiece.
We think humor in design is always a good thing. And we think this is an amazingly creative solution for art on a large wall and probably way cooler than that black and white poster of that French couple kissing that you've had since college.
Here's how it works: choose your "resolution" (number of yarns/inch), pick the rug size, select the number of colors you wish to use, send your image, and presto…the free service creates a grid directly corresponding to each square of your canvas with a color key that you can print it out at home. There's no software to install. The only things not included are the sweat equity and the supplies (which you can purchase online or at any arts & crafts store.)
We think you'll love it. And it's certainly better than a free bowl of soup with your new hat.
-Sabrina
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
More! more humor in design... Heeelarious!!!
I think this may be my winter project using http://hijinksensue.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/2008-03-28-nph-unicorn.jpg for my image.
view DahliaCactus's profile
What a great idea! A rug of myself that I can look at all day. Brilliant! I want more ideas from Sabrina this is hilarious.
view littlezdog's profile
I think this is kinda fun. I could see doing one of my dog.
view jooly's profile
You could also use the same pattern for a cross-stitch project. It would obviously be a smaller scale image but could be quite cute too! I'm a big fan of http://www.subversivecrossstitch.com.
view Monica's profile
Fun for a rug, in a sort of kitschy way, but I wouldn't use it for cross-stitch. Good cross-stitch charts are designed to minimize pixelization, where you have a single square of one color off by itself. This program doesn't have any way to clean that up. In a latch-hook rug, it wouldn't matter, because you hook each square individually. In cross-stitch, where you carry thread from one stitch to another, too many pixelated squares make the pattern a real pain.
view lurker2209's profile
i love this.
view steveb's profile