No grandma pillows here. Daniel Kornrumpf, an artist in Pennsylvania, created these amazingly detailed embroidered portraits.

The subtle shading and color differences created by thousands of precisely placed threads make for convincing portraits, and though straight lines can provide structure, his work looks much more impressionist than stitched—definitely a modern twist on the traditional craft of embroidery.

Some other hand-picked posts you might enjoy on our Design Blog:

Embroidered Penguin Classics: Book Covers by Jillian Tamaki
Illustrative Stitching by Peter Crawley
Personified Photo Series: People and Possessions by Jason Travis

Via Good