Here is a trip in the Wayback machine to 1988. My Mom was into quilling and we were decorating eggs. My Dad recently sent me photos of one of the eggs we worked on together.
This is a 37-year-old paper, glue, and egg project that has lived in a cupboard and been moved around the country a few times. I don’t think the colors faded or pieces fell off. Quilling is great for developing fine motor control and patience. (The egg was blown out before it was decorated.)
Some people who use laser cutters advocate for using masking tape to reduce the smoke stains on the surface of the wood. I tried it as I redesign my dishwasher magnet. I don’t like it.
With the addition of the tape, the laser settings have to be increased because of the thickness of the tape. After burning a design there are also small bits of tape left behind that need to be picked off, and in the fill areas the obliterated tape leaves a sticky residue. Yuck.
So how to deal with those smoke marks? A little bit of sanding with 400 grit sandpaper works wonders and takes less time than removing sticky tape.
Back to the beginning: Why am I redesigning? I didn’t like how the bit map engrave of the previous design was a little messy and took a long time to engrave, so I redrew the art and made an SVG file, which cut the processing time almost in half. Depending on settings, the previous bit map design took 11 minutes, where the new SVG takes 6.
Since I had more spun cotton single than I needed for my crepe yarn, I tried chain plying it to make a three ply yarn sample. It did not go well. The cotton single was difficult to handle and kept breaking if the strands rubbed together. The resulting yarn is very haphazard with sections that coiled mixed in with the smooth ply.
The chain ply and the crepe yarn don’t look that different on casual observation because of the irregularity of the single spin. The variations in width cause more visual texture than the plying techniques. I will have to try this comparison with a different fiber preparation.
I had a request for a camel laser cut ornament, so took a slice of flame maple and line engraved an SVG camel image. I like a line engrave of SVG files better than a bitmap engrave for JPG type images.
I like the way the flame maple looks like shifting desert sands, especially when it catches the light on the move.
Back in June of 2012 I was still making jewelry to enter into the Fire Mountain Gem contest. I was just starting to put my head toward marketing and using purchased elements rather than components made from scratch. The contest really is to motivate buyers to purchase from the company, so the designs that win need to have a wow factor and inspire makers to buy. Custom sculpted elements aren’t usually in the standard beaders repertoire.
I fell short of the mark on this design. I love it, but it did not make the short list in the contest. I used a purchased wire knit chain and braided it, used purchased ribbon ends and clasp, and built a daisy pin using plated button and pin findings, crystal petals, crystal beads, and seed beads.
I certainly had a long list of purchased elements, but maybe my color scheme didn’t fit what the judges were looking for, or I used difficult to decipher techniques. Hard to tell. I was getting better taking project photos, though.
Critters and Craft 