Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

So, the short version of this story is that I took on a somewhat ambitious project for friends (the Tadcasters) before Pennsic. I’ve learned to use several of the awesome features of my embroidery machine and gotten the hang of the digitizing software to some extent. The whole project took longer than I expected but not by much and I didn’t even curse people during the process. Plus, Andre has a spiffy new cloak. If you’ve never seen Andre fence with a cloak, you should. He’s amazing. Plus he has this new cloak you should check out.

The following are project notes, mostly for my own reference and rambling…

The longer version involves many hours poking at a sub-par image file to make it into something digitize-able. Why is it that every other group in the SCA has a pretty, clean, happy jpeg image of its emblem but the Order of the Golden Rapier has a poor photo of an enamel pin? Anyway, once I got to the point of digitizing, there were then several iterations to get things right… some test sewing… more edits and iterations… test sewing… changes… etc.

Thanks to IanRaven, the OGR has bottom fangs! HURRAY!

The digitizing is really quite fun once you get past the pixel-by-pixel editing in Photoshop to get a clean image to digitize! The software is slick and easy - and I don’t use these terms to describe software often. Given the original cost of the DesignerPlus software from Bernina, I’m glad it was so simple. The tutorial actually helped out a lot as well. Oh and the repetition of digitizing the same image over and over until it came out the way I wanted it to! This project took so many iterations in part because the original image was so poor. I’m curious to see how things will go with a cleaner original.

The construction of the cloak was pretty straight-forward, especially since I took the pattern from Andre’s original cloak (yes, that’s a gaping hole).

Corduroy and wool twill with generic machine embroidery stabilizer ($1.29/yard from Joann’s). The corduroy didn’t take the embroidery well - tufts came through. I might be able to remedy that another time I think. The math on the dags worked out well and there are 10 OGR emblems on the cloak. Trace, embroider, re-trace because the marking pencil wore off… cut, pin, sew… futz with the collar… hand sew (gasp) the collar closed…

It was presented to him by the Tadcasters at Iron Bog’s baronial court at Pennsic. The best part of the court presentation was definitely everyone grinning at Andre as he tried out the cloak. It apparently flies well and pleases the fencer because he has since been dubbed “Don Linus” for clinging to the new cloak. Hurray!

More photos over at Flickr… More Pennsic photos as time permits!

tags: bernina, bernina artista 730, designerplus software, embroidery, fencing, fighting cloaks, machine embroidery, order of the golden rapier, sewing, silly projects

So I’ve been known to contribute to environmental organizations such as the Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund and Defenders of Wildlife. I do it fairly regularly actually. Once you get on one or two of their mailing lists, you’re suddenly on a score of Earth-conscious organizatinons’ lists. And you know what that means? Lots of animal and nature themed address labels.

The message is clear:

Environmental organizations want us to send more snail-mail.

I admit it: The first thing I do when I move is to donate to one of the above organizations so my new address gets on the lists and I can get updated address labels. But after a few months, the address labels start taking over my desk!

Well, even if I sent out all the holidays cards I intended to each year and wrote to all the friends and relatives I keep meaning to write to, I could never use all the address labels I have just for mail. Never ever. I can’t just throw them out or recycle them, so I’ve had to come up with other ideas to keep the large stack of sheets of address labels manageable.

I present you with a list of things to do with address labels besides sending mail - I’ll update it with suggestions from the comments!

• Label your books and notebooks. Address labels make great bookplates!
• Label portable electronics accessories. I don’t recommend sticking a label to the power brick - wrap it around a safe part of the cord loosely and stick it to itself instead.
• Label other little things that are easily confused or snatched by other people - scissors, office supplies, tupperware you’re taking to a party, leftovers or lunches in the office fridge, etc.
• Use an address label instead of filling out all your info on pesky things like the envelopes for film development. This will work for any form that is NOT intended to be read by machines. I took a couple to my first appointment with a new doctor. The person doing the data entry actually thanked me.
• Use them instead of tape when organizing your receipts for expense reporting. I never have tape handy and using the address labels ensures that the receipts can be matched up with me if they get separated from the rest of the report.
• Stick them to the inside of cards when you’re providing someone with an updated address. (”Oh yeah, I moved in May so here’s my new address. And Happy New Year!”)
• Cut the address bits off to make them into animal/nature stickers for your favorite kidlets to play with.

I should further point out that you can get off the lists. If you never intend to donate again (aw…) and want to stop the flow of pleas for your money, most organizations have a way to request removal from their mailing lists.

Any other ideas?

Other tidbits - my new scanner is set up and there will be more Monster Cat soon!

tags: address labels, creative uses, labeling

I figured it was time for some gratuitous cuteness. Tennyson was about 2 months old when this photo was taken. This is proof that he was indeed small (less than 2 pounds!) once upon a time! He’s about 5 years old now and hovering around 16-17 pounds. I should take another picture with that same bonsai tree for fun.

While last Monday I posted pictures of snow from the nor’easter, today I’ll be taking photos of tulips and cherry blossoms out on my walk. It’s been very warm (low 80s) the past couple days, unseasonably so for April. It’s supposed to cool down starting tomorrow. It’s breezy today, as evidenced by my door slamming and opening every 5 minutes, so that bodes well for a change in the weather. Anyone still thinking global warming is a myth should look at the precipitation and temperature trends of the past few years.

Speaking of environmentalism and since Earth Day just breezed through… Here are some of the sites I feed the cute little (rabid) environmentalist in the back of my head:

• Grist: a great environmental news and information site. It’s not quite a blog, more like a news site with an opinionated slant. Oh wait, I just described half the “real” news sites. I’ll digress on the decline of media later…
• treehugger: a very green group blog. This blog collects all sorts of interesting news stories and information about going green, being green, eating green, and just green. Alternative energy, conservation, recycling and being a good environmental citizen are all topics touched on here.
• Living Plastic Free in 2007: The blog of EnviroWoman, a Vancouver 20-something who has decided to give up plastic completely for 2007 (anything leftover from 2006 is fine). She’s working hard to bring no new plastic into her life, especially the throw-away plastic you get everywhere. This blog is entertaining on many levels - EnviroWoman is witty and smart - but it also has made me think about how much useless plastic comes into (and is thrown out in) my life.
• Wise Bread: Not really an environmental blog as much as a sensible, money-saving blog, which often results in practices that don’t harm the planet quite so much. They recently ran an interesting series on Bottled Water Hype: Water, which is sort of ubiquitous, now arrives in plastic bottles, bottles that are polluting to create and polluting to get rid of.

And speaking of green, this week is Administrative Professionals Week and tomorrow is the big day (formerly known as Secretary’s Day). This means it’s time for my annual dredging up of a fabulous team project! Once upon a time, in a company far, far away, a beloved department admin mentioned she liked flowers. The result was Project Secretary’s Day: How to Build a Summer’s Day. If you’re really looking for a way to say thank you to the admin in your world, there’s no better “Thank you for doing a great job!” messenger than a fully landscaped cube. Seriously. I promise. A vase of flowers is pretty and all, but sod communicates true appreciation. Follow the link above for the full experience including “making of” pages to help you landscape your own (or your neighbor’s) cube.

tags: administrative professionals week, cats, cube landscaping, environmentalism, green, how to build a summer’s day, kittens, project secretary’s day, random links, secretarys day, silly, tennyson, weather