Deadly Remains

Leave a reply

I just finished reading Deadly Remains: A Clairvoyant’s Complicated Life by Katherine Bayless. It’s a unique variation on the standard UF template in a few ways. I really enjoyed it although the heroine had a few too many issues to deal with for me to comfortably slide into her skin. What with the whole can’t touch anyone, or anything ever touched by anyone, not even a little. But I liked the angle and, while I was fairly sure she would work it out in the end, I wasn’t totally sure how. Lots of nice loose ends have been left for the second book, which is being worked on now.

M’s patches

Leave a reply

20130601-072037.jpg

20130601-072114.jpg

Working on patches for M to give to her classmates for her birthday. Lessons learned already are:

1. Die cut the circles slightly larger than the patch size so I don’t get gaps around the edge of the patch

2. Leave an edge of fabric around the interfacing to put on the die cut mat. At least, I’m hoping that stops the fabric from gumming up in the cutter.

First Cameo project, invites for D

Leave a reply

IMG_5501 IMG_5502

 

I got the .svg files from http://bit.ly/13tNclY. I had to clean up the Darth Vader, after running the trace command in the Cameo’s software. Naturally I forgot to take a picture of it before I mailed them all out. This was the only one left and the top is a bit manky.

One cool thing about the Cameo is you can print on the paper first, using your printer, and it will include registration marks so the Cameo can cut in the right places. Unfortunately the marks eat into some of the layout space so I ended up not being as efficient as I would have liked. Lesson learned… Especially when printing, 12×12 paper is probably better than 8.5×11. Also of note, while a lower blade setting, like 2, will work on the card stock for a basic cut, if it’s something more intricate, like the black part of this invitation, turn it up to 3.

New Toy!!

Leave a reply

20130415-194721.jpg

Yay! My new toy is here!!

It all started as an idea to make merit badges for the kids… How to cut out lots of nice fabric circles easily. I tried a few of my hand punches but they didn’t work very well on fabric. So naturally I had to get something over the top.

From there I re-discovered the Cricut (pronounced Cricket, who knew?) which takes very expensive cartridges. I remember when it first showed up. Seemed super pricey, and I remember Joann’s coupons didn’t apply. They still don’t. Ok, maybe that would work. I could make invitations and party favors and thank you notes too and the kids’ birthdays are coming up soon. And i can get cartridges on eBay; there’s even a Hello Kitty cartridge… Bonus! But then I discovered the Hello Kitty cartridge is discontinued and going for over $100-150 a pop on eBay. Boo! But I started to feel like I Must Have It.

Luckily, I came across a reference to this guy, the Silhouette Cameo. It’s like an Open Source Cricut… No cartridges, you can buy individual patterns, or even totally design your own. You can give it a file you printed and it will cut it out for you.
I have some plans that I don’t want to go into now. Hopefully they’ll work! I might even try to design some patterns of my own to sell. Lots of people on Etsy seem to be doing…silhouettes. Ironic and not very outside the box, considering the name.

What should this be?

Leave a reply

20130413-091846.jpg

I’m trying to figure out what to make with this yarn. I started a pair of leg warmers, but every time I explained what and why I was making them, it sounded silly. (Cold ankles at Sharks games.) I would just put the yarn back in my stash, but I feel like it should get to be made, now that it’s out.

So… Cowl? Scarf? Fingerless mitts? I could maybe get a tank out of it but they’re kind of funky colors for a top. I only have four balls of it. No patterns are screaming at me yet.

On a side note, the leg warmer I did finish, I knitted it using Portuguese Knitting, which was actually pretty cool. I’ve become obsessed with making a magnetic knitting pin. But going over the neck has been pretty ok. Except when I wear a hoodie. Which I do a lot.

So what do you want to be funny purple and green yarn?

Oh, one more thing. This is my first post using my phone. We’ll see if it works.

Printrbot – ongoing

1 Reply

printrbotInProgress

Assembling a Printrbot+ 3D printerthat we bought via their Kickstarter project. After sitting in our living room for months, B and I started working on it the first week I was “unemployed”. But he was really sick so I ended up doing it myself. We ran into some issues with parts not being the same as spec’d. I had some gears that didn’t fit on the motor shafts, and some of the pieces didn’t look like they did in the assembly videos. Also the board had one hole that was smaller than the other three, and I didn’t know what screw to put in there. The video said all the holes should be the  same size. I confirmed those were still ok parts to use, and got the correct gear parts shipped out. Brook of Printrbot, or one of his minions took care of that. <p>In the assembly video, they say the board we have in ours is from an old kit, or one purchased “somewhere else”. I don’t know what that’s about since we got it from them and should have been one of the first people to get one. Anyway, it’s about 1/3 done, best guess. We have three colors of filament ready to go. I really want to get started printing. Hopefully we can get it done soon and calibration will be easy.