When I asked what he wanted for his birthday....

.... curiously he didn't answer "cross stitch".

But that's what he got!

Gift giving time is always tricky with this bloke. Ask him what he wants and he'll usually answer "world peace" or something equally Miss Universe worthy. The trick is to give him exactly what he really wanted but didn't yet realise he wanted!

....And what child of the 70's could resist a Galactica Space Invaders cross-stitched T-shirt?!

This idea came about when I was browsing Japanese Amazon for embroidery magazines after making this little shirt. I came across a book of cross stitch patterns for Pacman and other video games, but they were much more of the hand held console era, and when I showed them to Flipper he simply said "I'd prefer Galactica"

With those few words I had my mission.

Searching for ready made cross stitch patterns didn't yield any results. So, I grabbed a bit of graph paper, sat out on the back verandah in the sunshine with a sick kid who was home from daycare for the day and got drawing.

I downloaded an image off the 'net and created my own cross stitch pattern. There are 4 main variants of the enemy fleet and the active shooter is a bit different to the reserve fighters. In total there are 33 spaceships, a few bullets and a little Game Over tag on the back. Each ship is about 1 hour's work for me, so starting this a week out from his birthday meant that every spare minute and many late evenings were spent stitching!

 

Thankfully, my parents, who are evidently blog readers and pay attention, had bought me a thimble for my birthday (along with an autographed, no less, copy of Thimbles of Australia). My birthday is just a few days before Flipper's, so my last night of cross stitching was done with a happily thimble protected finger! (and the Giro d'Italia had started so I got to see Gerro take the first pink jersey while sewing until 2am))

After the birthday rolled around, and I'd caught up on some sleep, I decided to digitise my first ever cross stitch pattern and make it freely available to any other insane soul who feels the need for sharing some Free Downloadable Galactica Space Invaders Cross Stitch Pattern love!

The pattern is positioned to fit on an A4 page and still be legible, but the shooters and the Game Over tag should be repositioned from where they are on the page. I used DMC 14ct/inch soluble canvas and the finished fleet ends up about 24cm x13cm.

Details:
Pattern: Liesl & Co Metro t-shirt for men
Size XL - note to self: add about 2cm to sleeve length
Fabric: Stable cotton interlock with rayon jersey for neckband (due to lack of black ribbing)
Extras: Cross stitch pattern as above using DMC25 embroidery thread colour 169 - probably a bit thick and some of the detail is lost. Topstitching type thread may be better