"I Am the Shadow" - Oogie Boogie Cross Stitch

I know what my initial idea was for this cross stitch project, but I'm not sure how I progressed to this.  This started as a very simple spider cross stitch. It was just going to be a spider that looked like it was hanging from the top of the frame and had created a web in the corner.  Somehow this happened and I'm very happy it did since I love Nightmare Before Christmas. 

Creating the Design:

The image of Oogie Boogie on the moon is taken right from the movie.  It is from the beinging song: This is Halloween.  I watched the song clip (from Youtube) on my iPad and took screenshots of when he was on the screen and, from there, traced the image onto paper and then tried to imitate it in the Cross Stitch Creator Program - MacStitch.  I drew out the letters and tried to make them a little different my elongating the tops of the "a" "o" "b" "d" and "g".  And slanted the lines in the "t" and "f".  Luckily the program has this nice feature where you can highlight sections and cut or copy them.  So after drawing out all the lines, I could easily move them around and center them on the left side of the pattern.


Supplies:

• Black Cross Stitch Fabric
• Cross Stitch Needle
• Pattern (PDF Provided)
• Frame
• White Embroidery Floss (I used quite a bit, but no more than one skein)
• Hoop
• Iron (for flattening it after putting it in a hoop)
• *Suggested: Watch or listen to Nightmare Before Christmas

Directions:

Time to cross stitch!  I was always taught to start from the center.  And I decided to do the words first so I started at the end of "Dreams" and worked my way through all the words.

Now just start cross stitching the moon and Oogie's mouth and eyes.  In the pattern I only filled in the squares (or x's), but I also filled in all the halves and three quarters that you can see along the edges (Photo 8).  

Once all of the cross stitching is done, time to outline it all with backstitches.  Usually this is done with one strand, but I wanted it thick and want to cover up all the places where a half stitch wouldn't fit, so I did 2 strands.  It might be difficult to follow the pattern for outlining.  If it is, what I did was mostly went from the corner of a full square to the corner of another full square.  Many of the stitches are 2 - 5 boxes long.  I don't usually like long stitches, but it helps with creating the circle.

Once you are done, iron it and put it in your frame.  You can leave the glass in your frame, I had to take it out to photograph it.

Hope you enjoy looking at Oogie Boogie!