Okay, I guess the mere existence of this section proves the fanatical extent of my Guareschi fandom. :-)

Since I enjoy cross-stitch, back in 1998 I wondered whether I could turn one of my color jpegs of a Guareschi cartoon into a counted cross-stitch pattern. A little online searching turned up some downloadable software that seemed right for the job: a program called "Win-Stitch." It was a little hard to use (in my humble opinion, anyhow), but it had some nice features (including a "preview" function that showed you the design as it would appear when stitched). Well, hubby and I tried it on one cartoon and got a pretty good result-- which he (my husband-and-technical-advisor, that is) improved upon by copying the chart and preview screens, turning them into jpegs, and cleaning them up a bit. We've included them at this site for the pleasure of anyone who, like me, enjoys both cross-stitch and Camillo.

I've put the items for you to download-- two big jpgs-- at the very bottom of this page. But between here and there is a preview, for those who want to look before they download.

To begin, here's the cartoon I chose to try to adapt, a personal favorite:

__________

And here's a facsimile of what Win-Stitch converted it to (note: this is not the one to download and use; the actual file is bigger and readable):

__________

Finally, here's a facsimile (again, much reduced in size) of what Win-Stitch tells me the finished product will look like. It gives you an idea of the consequences of some of the choices I made while using the program (such as having cross-stitches instead of backstitching to outline the design, and reducing the complexity of the thing to just 12 colors). By the way, I think this jpg came out a little on the pale side: the skin-tone looks pinker in real-life. To see a life-sized version (it's 700 pixels wide), click here.

__________

Okay, at last, here's the stuff to download. It's just two files, but you might also want to copy down the comments below:

• The stitch-chart: The file is bigchart.jpg (left-click to view it; right-click to download it). And I know it's possible to print this thing legibly on one piece of 8.5 X 11 paper, because I've done it. Make sure you put the paper in landscape mode, obviously, and your right and left margins have to be pretty small (try .5 inch). Oh, and don't be surprised when the "ruler" that prints out as part of the chart is not quite true-to-life; its "inch" is more like an inch-and-a-quarter. Finally, if you don't have a color printer, then you'll get the chart in shades of gray, but that's okay: each color is also represented on the chart by a symbol, and all the symbols are legible against the shades of gray (well, they were on the b&w one I printed out, with the possible exceptions of two slightly fuzzy ones which I describe below **).

• The Key/legend: Can't do without this; it interprets the chart's color symbols for you (and yes, the codes and names given are for DMC colors). Now, despite the text-y nature of this information, this file is another jpg rather than a text file, and here it is: stitchlegend.jpg (again, left-click to view it; right-click to download it.

** Okay, about those two symbols that I think are fuzzier than the others: one is for the color identified in the Key as "Old gold - vy. dk." If you're printing the stitch chart in black and white, the symbol is supposed to be a white asterisk on a darkish-gray background, and it is found only in the "wooden" end of the shotgun. The other rather "fuzzy" symbol is the one for "Grey green - vy. lt." It comes out on the chart as a white, blobby sort of circle on a light-ish gray background, and the color appears only in the smoke from the gun and in the barrel of the gun.

Oh, and if you want to try Win-Stitch for yourself, I'm not sure I can help you. Here's the old URL-- www.winstitch.com (set to open in a new window)-- but it didn't work last time I tried it.