Getting the Family In On It

I have had an idea for a "personal logo" for awhile but Pinterest and Google searches hadn't revealed the right thing. I want this to create business cards for supply (substitute) teaching, but also for personal use. Something that would represent me, on a business and personal level. I can't separate them! Once I got the Cricut, I knew it had to be created. Co-incidentally, Hugh was learning graphic design programs. I'm sure he could help me out!

I found a treble clef image. Just finding a realistic, classical treble clef was a challenge. Then I had to find a compass rose. Something bold but not modern, classic but not fussy. 

Done! Sent them off to the wonder child, and waited. Like, seriously, only 30 minutes. And then this appeared in my in box!

Like, how the heck did he do that?! I think this was the second version though--I had him add the N and make the points extend into the treble clef.

However, when I took it into Design Space, it wasn't looking right. The compass got thick.  I tried playing around with it

I got it broken down into it's parts, but the compass had a white background instead of transparent. 

And to make it fit in the clef, it goes over the inner swirl. When I go to cut it out though, I need that overlap gone, and I need the background transparent. I couldn't figure it out in Design Space, and I didn't want to harass my child again. He was still in the early stages of learning Illustrator. The original design he sent looks fine as a print image, it's just not ready for cutting and he's not familiar with what a Cricut does, and doesn't live here, so it gets complicated trying to explain. We'll come back to it later. 

Next up was this Canadian Bingo. I saw it in a group and thought it'd be fun for my niece who is a new Canadian. I didn't really like the title font though and I needed it in a format I could use. I tried in Word, using a table, but it was pathetic. Enter Hugh the Hero:

It's a little challenging to see, but the maple leaves are a few shades of red. There's a deer head at the top.  I printed on regular paper, but it was kind of washed out. Rob suggested printing on photo paper, so I did, and it looked much better. Megan helped me pick out a frame, and Rob cleaned it and assembled it. 

The next thing (actually started earlier) was the logo for the community band I'm in. I want to be able to make bumper stickers.

There's a lot of detail that just doesn't work for cutting out in vinyl. A couple years ago Hugh re-did the design so it could be embroidered on to shirts. It's mainly the blue and yellow inner, with a black outline and a silver banner but not the bottom banner (I think....not going to go check).

I had to do some disassembling. I notice the top of the shield is a bit jagged.

The different parts of blue (and yellow, etc) had to get "attached" so they would cut like that, instead of individual parts. 

There was something about the letters...I decided I wanted the black on top so I welded the shapes over the letters because I couldn't "contour" them for some reason. 

I learned about registration marks, and used them. I learned about layering with parchment paper, and did that. But the black outline was too thin and there was a black cross to divide the segments but it was also way too thin. It easily got skewed. I had issues with getting the text off the backing. One thing after another. I ended up putting this on the inside of my work binder, but it's textured so the tiny letters don't really stick. Rob tried to tell me to make the whole thing black and put the parts on top, but I was frustrated and didn't really understand. After some more videos and projects, I clued in. I re-worked it so the silver also includes the shield. Then there's a solid black layer, and then the 4 segments on top. The letters...I can't remember...I think they are cut out of the colours so the black shows.  I haven't tried re-cutting it yet. 

Megan figure skates, as evident in many blog posts. I thought I could easily whip up her club logo into a file to make bumper stickers, water bottle labels, etc. Just follow the videos! It started out fine but I ran into troubles so Hugh rescued me again. I don't understand how a 3 colour image could be so difficult. A big issue was the quality of the initial image. Neither of us could find a good one. In the end, this one should work. On the water bottles the club handed out, it's just one colour--the blue, and the rest is transparent. Boring! But easiest when mass producing.

Next up---a Bitmoji image! I saw several videos on how to do this! It was going really well, but I had issues with my mouth and the thin line of the bottom of my glasses. Hugh fixed it and wow! It's adorable! I love it! I put my name as how it's pronounced. This makes it harder for students to search for me on social media LOL. I put it on my old bottle as a test. I haven't gotten around to putting it anywhere else, but I think my truck needs one. 

Up next will be more projects I did without help LOL. I think I got ahead of myself with the band logo and I needed to step back. I got more into learning Inkscape, and doing some paper projects. 

 

A New Craft!

 It happened. I started a new crafting journey. I've always been interested in "personal doc(ument) cutting" machines. For awhile, I was seriously considering getting a Brother Scan N Cut. It didn't seem to be available locally and seemed to be the shy, smart kid off in the corner compared to the Cricut and Silhouette machines. Everyone knows about Cricuts and Silhouettes, but not many knew about the Brother. As soon as Rob started looking at them, he declared that we should get a "real" vinyl cutter, not any of these small ones. Of course, he wasn't about to invest the money in one, or set it up (some are big!), etc, so the idea just lingered. The home machines are pricey enough that I couldn't just rush out to purchase one. I mean, I've been putting off getting a new camera, which would have cost the same or less. 

Schools shut down at the start of March Break here. It was initially for two weeks after the break. Then it got extended....a few times...I knew I would be getting some money back from a cancelled trip, and a camp, and thought maybe this would be a good time to indulge and treat myself. I watched the prices for the Cricut Maker at Costco and Michaels, and then one day Michaels had a sale with the lowest price I'd seen (I've been getting their emails for years so I casually kept informed on the price). I was able to place an order for curbside pick up locally. There seemed to be very few machines available! I picked it up, plugged it in, and got started. Nervous but excited. I like learning things! But I also know there can be a lot to learn, and a lot of ways to mess up. Which I have certainly done!

Set up went smoothly. I tried to do the first, intro, project, and couldn't find it! I found "unboxing" videos and they were able to find it easily. I did find it but not with the kite cut from fabric. Eventually I figured it out.

I don't think I took a picture of the card, but here she is, all set up. Well, not really. I realized there were no outlets close enough here.

I didn't get any additional supplies but I used to do scrapbooking, so I thought I would have what some materials to get started. I started looking at the projects in the Cricut software and realized I had very little to work with. I did find this red cardstock and this neat maple leaf design, so I gave it a try. I didn't get it sized up properly and a tip got cut off.

These are the bits that are left on the mat. I thought they were almost as good as the paper that got cut out. But what to do with them? I did get some clear contact paper from Dollarama and tried to get them off the mat all together....but the contact  paper stuck to the mat, it got wrinkled, etc. I then put some on the backside too so the stickiness was contained.

So now what? I trimmed it close (because I got a grease spot from dinner on it), but then what? I decided I'd put it on a card for my niece who just got her Canadian citizenship.

I went to Dollarama to see what I could stock up on. They had pads of printed cardstock that was a great deal! And a bunch of other assorted things I thought I could use. I even needed just plain old glue.

Father's Day was coming up, and although I don't usually do much, the kids don't either--and especially now that they aren't in elementary school, making gifts. Lots of projects out there. I found this card design, but it needed an envelope. I found an envelope but wanted to try sprucing it up. I took a heart, and welded a star into it. However....I had taken the score lines off because I don't have a score wheel, and so I wasn't paying attention to where the flap gets folded and the heart is too low. 

 

I added slits so I could tuck a solid paper behind. The design was totally not mine, I wasn't ready for that yet.

I was making freezer meals for my eldest to have on hand while living away. I bought a small Crockpot and thought I should dress it up. I don't think this was the first thing I cut from vinyl, but I had some challenges.

There's so much to learn. Design aspects, materials, just how to use the software and machine. It's hard to know what's a user error, and what's a material error or a machine error.

I knew I had to shrink the letter spacing with cursive so the letters touch, but didn't realize it's a challenge to cut the thin lines in vinyl

It's so not me, that makes it even funnier! I still need to do my Instant Pot!

I made a simple two layer decal for Megan's Airpods case. Originally, I wanted a small M inside a big M. Kind of like an outline. I couldn't figure out how to do it though (tip:  you can't, using Cricut Design Space, you have to do this--offset--in other software).

I went back to paper for the next item. I thought it would be nice to have a simple gift box pattern. I could not find any that were free, and very simple! I did find this, from Jennifer Maker.  It's adorable, though I haven't done anything with it. It's not as box like as I wanted, but still a great, easy project with good impact.

Back to vinyl.  I have this IKEA plastic cover for in the microwave. People often take it out and leave it on the counter. So I made a reminder to put it back in if you take it out.

Some people say not to use items with vinyl in the microwave. At this point in my life, I've probably gotten enough plastic poisoning that I don't know if this little bit of vinyl, for the little amount of time the microwave is used, is really an issue.

I was getting ready to deliver the Crockpot and meals, and I was including some cornstarch for making slurries to thicken the meals. I wanted to make a label for the little jar. The font I used for Cornstarch had extra cuts between all the letter segments. It did go on fine though. The instructions, in blue, were a different story. I think I used a different font. I made sure it was thick, but the cut letters kept getting lifted as it cut, so it was all out of line. No way to get it back in proper order. So I just put the cornstarch label on the jar and wrote out the instructions. Not sure what happened here. 

The kid also needed a birthday card. Jennifer Maker came through again, with this 3D card. 

 

I didn't have spray adhesive, just Dollarama clear glue and the card kind of looks like a 1st grader put it together. It doesn't really "pop up" like in her video. I had a hard time figuring out where to score since I took off the score lines.  Next time, if they're not visible when done, change to draw lines, or make them skinny cut dashed lines.

I wanted to move on to more complicated things. Our mailbox was looking a little sad, so Rob painted it and I created this monogram. However, when I applied the vinyl, despite having marked where to place it, it didn't go on straight. Rob couldn't tolerate it, so he carefully scraped off the curlicues.

I love it, though I wish it was fancier LOL. 

Something else I got into this spring was cocktail chemistry. On our cruise last fall, we had our first drink package. I tried to try a lot of different drinks, though I didn't even know what I'd like. I found some YouTube channels that are all about cocktails, and got into making my own syrups. I bought some jars off Amazon, in two sizes, and realized very quickly that I need to label them better than with a Sharpie! This one is honey syrup. I'll make another post with all my bottles. With this one,  the yellow bits are individual, but get applied as one piece. If I ever do this one again, I'll make the yellow a single piece and put the black over it.

My FIL wanted his bicycle back and since Rob had to do a bit of fixing up, I added a decal. I wanted to include his cell phone number but got told no LOL. 

I started to make more complex designs after this, so I'll make different posts for those. 

What I would tell another Cricut newbie---find a YouTube channel with beginner tutorials. Watch some more advanced videos too, but don't get ahead of yourself. You really do need to start with some basic projects to learn how your machine handles different materials, and how to put things together. While a 4 layer vinyl decal looks not that difficult when you see an expert doing it on YouTube, keep in mind they've been doing it a long time, and the power of editing  is real.

 One downfall with Cricut is their design program has some strange deficiencies. In any FB Cricut group, when you ask how to do somethings, people will chime in that you can't, you need to use another program like Illustrator or Inkscape. I decided to get on the Inkscape bandwagon. It's free, and surprisingly powerful. Overwhelming at first, but again, watch tutorials for beginners, especially ones geared for Cricut users. The best thing about using Inkscape is that you can save your files as SVGs. This means you can share or even sell your designs! In Cricut, when you save your project, you're saving to their server. You can't take it outside of Cricut. You can share with other Cricut users, but I believe they have to have the same fonts, etc, installed. If Cricut has an off day, you might not be able to access your projects. Learning Inkscape has been really fun. I've created all sorts of non-Cricut designs too! Sometimes I get stuck, and I have to email the design off to Hugh, and he can use it in Illustrator and fix my mistakes and send it back. You can't do this with Design Space. I'll post more about Inkscape later. 

Yes, Another One

 After finishing the bulky scrappy afghan, I knew I had enough for another one. I reached in the bin and got knitting. Did a corner to corner again. This time I did allow myself to reach for the brighter colours, otherwise I might have been too close with the yarn amount.

What's frustrating is that I'll have small balls I leave to the end because I always want to get 1-2 rows of each colour. But then I usually end up with small balls still left because it really doesn't take as much as I think it will for the last section. Perhaps I need to do a blanket made of smaller blocks, sewn together. 

For this one, I didn't put a border on it. I wish I had slipped the edge stitch though. 

That join between the red and white, right in the middle, is really bugging me.

This weighed in at 600gr, which I thought was a lot, but then I looked back at the crochet one, and it took over 1000gr. Knitting really does use less yarn! It's great, being bi-craftual

Yarn In:  5115gr
Yarn Out:   8315gr + 600gr = 8915gr
Balance: 3800 gr more OUT than in!
Costs: $115.68/266 days = $0.43 per day

New Blankets for Charity

 I recently finished up two more blankets for charity!

This is from the cone of Bernat "Mosaic" that I showed previously. I really thought I'd have enough for a blanket, based on weight, but it ended up a bit small. The charity used to take a smaller size, so I don't know if they might still take it. It weighed in at 328gr. It's very rare for me to make a blanket by casting on the entire width. It's nice in this yarn because it keeps the colour sections even, as opposed to starting in the corner and the rows getting longer and longer.

I had a lot of chunky yarn left from projects--remember those hoods with the years that were so popular a few years ago? And the rectangular ponchos? And the mermaid tail blankets? It was time to clear out those yarns. Plus, my worsted weight collection is actually dismal, except for what I just bought.

I tried to keep this one to the more muted colours, no pink, yellow, red, bright green. It weighed in at 1016gr.

Lots of different weights and textures. I was using a 8mm hook. What I started doing was with the thicker yarns, making only 3 DC in each group, instead of 4.  It washed up lovely. I got started on another one, but in knit as the stash is dwindling! (Well...the yarns appropriate for blankets...the rest of the stash room is still full).

Yarn In:  5115gr
Yarn Out:    6971gr + 1344gr = 8315gr
Balance: 3200 gr more OUT than in!
Costs: $115.68/259 days = $0.45 per day

I Bought Yarn!

 Where'd August go? 

Oh yeah, it's 2020. My niece came to stay for a bit. It was suggested to us as "a few days" but turned into two and a half weeks, minus "a few days" in the middle when we sent her back to her mother because of behaviour. Interesting. 

Then we went to a cottage for two weeks. I thought I'd get lots of blog updating done there, but the internet was not that great with all of us trying to use it. 

Before going to the cottage, I bought yarn. I started this idea when I went on the Florida road trip. Buy a large skein (340gr) of Bernat "Handicrafter" in a colour that will remind me of the trip, and knit only dishcloths on the trip. No more "What should I pack to work on" dilemmas. Oh, I still take another small project, but my main focus is on the dishcloths. Small, no pattern, can work in the dark. Perfect. 

This year, for the cottage, I chose "Junebug".  I didn't look at the name, I just picked the colours. The only other option at Wal-Mart was shades of brown. Not inspiring. The neat thing was, this yarn perfectly matched the cushions in the screened in porch, where I spent most of my time. 

The porch became the puzzle room in the second week. Much hilarity ensued as puzzle building was turned into a competition sport.

I actually didn't get the cloths finished until after I got home. Two weeks should have been plenty of time, but I also had the little baby hats. I got 12 from the big skein, which was about $10.

My recipe for dishcloths:

Cast on 3 sts with 5.5mm needles.  I knit them a bit loose so when they shrink, they're still flexible.

Every row: K1, Yarn Over, knit to end of row.

Repeat until there are 20 eyelets up each side.

Every row: K1, Yarn Over, slip 1 stitch, knit 2 together, pass slipped stitch over the k2tog.

Repeat until there's about 4 stitches left. Then I wing it to decrease down to one stitch (like, k1, YO, k3tog; next row, k2tog and pull yarn through). 

I pull the big ball through the last loop and tightened. Leave a long length (8-10"?) and start again without cutting the first one off. After I do about 4 or 5, I will cut them off. Weave in ends.

(According to Blogger, this is in the center....will have to see....)

I also bought some more baby yarn for the newborn hats. I really have very little left for baby hats (suitable for hospital handout--I have lots of gorgeous yarns for custom hats when I can share care instructions). Three skeins of Loops & Threads "Snuggly" (141gr each). It was actually difficult to find a DK weight yarn suitable at Michaels. I could have gone thinner, but didn't find any suitable. I'd love to use sock yarn, but not for donations. I might try with some ends of balls I have. It is machine washable.

It was hard to find a perfect spot outdoors to knit. No lounge furniture on the deck, just dining furniture. Chairs on the patio/firepit level but it was pretty sunny. This part of the deck was usually shady, but it was often quite windy down here, and a little noisy with boats and jet skis. 

We ran into Giant Tiger to get more "Magic Fire" powder. They had some of those "1lb Unknown Fiber" bags of yarn. Grabbed a few worsted weight bags; 908gr, for  $17.99 (with tax).

And then, the best find of the year. While leaving Sobey's in Gravenhurst, I looked at the Community Bulletin Board. I saw a poster for "Shelridge Yarns"!!  How had I forgotten about this great business? Years ago, pre-blog (I started in August 2006) I found out about them. At the time, they were a farm in Ariss, ON, near Guelph. I visited it and bought some sock yarn. I have blogged about those socks, maybe 2007 or 2008. Then, they sold the yarn business to the women from Cabin Fever patterns and yarn. The business moved to Orillia at some point, I moved to Whitby and lost touch with the "indie" yarn companies as there weren't any fiber shows out here. So, imagine my surprise when I saw that they were alive and well and right there in the town we were staying near!

Walking in, I think I heard angels singing. It was delightful. So much yarn, so many colours! It's really nice yarn, and the great thing is colours are consistent between yarn weights. And not  just six colours per yarn type. No...more like six shades of just green. Their Instagram page has some photos. It's so beautiful to see all these "basic" yarns, rather than the hodgepodge of textures and fibers that fill the rows at Michaels. 

I started talking to Lyn, I think it was. I asked about some yarns I had seen on the website but couldn't recall the name of the group....something strange...."Strange Brew"! She told me about how she was trying tonal dyeing. Handpainted yarns have been very popular the last 15-20 years. While gorgeous, I find they can often be hard to work with. Often the colours are very distinct and different in the skein but when you knit them up, things get muddled and muted. With tonal dyeing, the colours blend more subtly. Some of the colours reminded me of the wools my aunt would dye from natural dyes we would collect (walnut shells, onion peels, etc). Lyn pointed out this worsted weight pile and my heart exploded. I mean--I was even wearing a turquoise top! The yarn was so new, it didn't have a tag or a colour name. I called it Curacao, as it reminded me of our southern Caribbean cruise almost 3 years ago. It is going to become either a hat or mitts. I have to sort through my bin and see what I need. (100gr, $28.25)

Total weight in....1771gr! Wow. That's like, half of what I bought all year, just in August. But.....almost twice what I spent up till now LOL. Still, less than 50cents a day on yarn. Not bad. However, have I told you about my other new hobby?  Stay tuned. 

Yarn In:  3344gr + 1771gr= 5115gr
Yarn Out:   6631gr + 340gr = 6971gr
Balance: 1856 gr more OUT than in!
Costs: $73.34 + $42.35= $115.68/248 days = $0.47 per day