Silver Seams

Lobigna

Karen in Wichita — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:32:50 -0500

Jennifer, a/k/a Raef Wolfe, was kind enough to send me pictures of the wolf she made using the Basic Standing Wolf pattern:

[http://images.silverseams.com/gallery/plushies/jhookway_wolf1_th.jpg] [http://images.silverseams.com/gallery/plushies/jhookway_wolf2_th.jpg] [http://images.silverseams.com/gallery/plushies/jhookway_wolf3_th.jpg]

She had some trouble finding eyes and noses, and ended up covering an eye with pleather to make the nose. She used the same pleather around the eye (click to see the... Read more

In case the garden wasn't time-consuming enough.

Karen in Wichita — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 21:02:00 -0500

On my desk (okay, a temporary folding table in the middle of the living room):
[2-day old ducklings]
Chocolate peeps!

Actually, Khaki Campbell ducklings. Eight of them, of which we'll be keeping four or five. (The remainder will either become someone else's flock, or duck dinners. Our son is lobbying hard for the former, and since KCs are better layers than meat birds, it would make more sense.)

But really, that's not what's been keeping me busy. Garage sales (having, not going to), still more medic... Read more

Why I haven't been blogging

Karen in Wichita — Sun, 25 May 2008 12:19:21 -0500

I've been putting in a garden:
[Garden - May 17 - East]

It's addictive. You start planting stuff in anything that holds still:
[Potato Tower]

Most of the hard work is done (the beds are all constructed, now it's just a matter of watering and weeding and harvesting and replanting), but that doesn't mean I have a lot of free time yet:
[DIY Painting]

But I've taken time out to make things:
[Geodesic Teepee]
Obviously, there's still a lot of cleanup to be done. But it's supposed to rain this week, so maybe... Read more

Maintaining your blogroll

Karen in Wichita — Mon, 05 May 2008 12:18:42 -0500

I have always been really awful about maintaining my blogroll, in part because I've had mixed feelings about them. I'd go to a site I liked, and there'd be this daunting list of of names, most of which give only minimal clues about what the site is like. But I never wanted to go to the trouble of trying to keep a blogroll that's (1) current, (2) gives some idea of what the destination site is like, and (3) doesn't take up more space than the actual content of my page does.

Google to the rescue.

If... Read more

Congratulations, Stacy

Karen in Wichita — Mon, 05 May 2008 08:43:11 -0500

You know you're a dedicated blogger when you post the morning after giving birth. I can't seem to post more than once a week (though I'm doing better over in the houseblog - it's the garden that's been eating all my time).

At any rate, Stacy of Stacy Sews is a new mommy, pictures here. And congratulations here!

Another blogroll baby

Karen in Wichita — Mon, 05 May 2008 08:42:50 -0500

Die maus ist hier, or something. (Sorry, the last German-speaking relative of mine was my grandmother, who was Pennsylvania Dutch - but orphaned young and raised English, and anyway I never met her, so I've only acquired third- and fourth-hand scraps of the language.)

So what I'm trying to say is: Congratulations to Cathy the Raggy Rat Lady, on the birth of her daughter!

Look what was in my garden

Karen in Wichita — Fri, 02 May 2008 12:38:58 -0500

[http://images.silverseams.com/gallery/workinprogress/FlowerBunnyWIP0_th.jpg]
We had a hailstorm come through last night, so I went out early this morning to see if anything remained of my garden. I was pessimistic, so I was pleasantly surprised. This is the worst of the cabbages, and I'm sure it'll pull through fine.
[http://images.silverseams.com/gallery/workinprogress/FlowerBunnyWIP1_th.jpg]
I put the tomatoes and peppers in a little too early, though. But the gerbera daisies are doing beautiful... Read more

Snowshoe hare pattern

Karen in Wichita — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:13:24 -0500

[http://images.silverseams.com/gallery/workinprogress/SnowshoeSketch_th.gif]
Consider this a preview, since I don't yet have the actual pattern page with full instructions up, and won't until I have a finished critter to show there.

Head
Neck
Arm
Leg
Leg/Tail
Body
More Body

It's pretty self-explanatory, at least if you're familiar with teddy bear construction and double-jointed necks (if not, wait for the real pattern release and all will be made clear). Additional neck circles go on the bottom of the he... Read more

On my desk

Karen in Wichita — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:11:27 -0500

[http://images.silverseams.com/gallery/onmydesk/pixmae_th.jpg]
Two generations of Canon Pixmas (Pixmae?), the newer of which is an all-in-one. Which means I once again have a working scanner, and the biiiiig box of paper patterns downstairs is calling to it.

So is the snowshoe hare, who's had some pattern modifications done after being printed out. My previous method of digitizing consisted of taking pictures of the pieces on my infamous orange 1" grid, tracing the outlines and correcting for keys... Read more

Work in "progress" Friday

Karen in Wichita — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 21:43:12 -0500

There's a little progress, but nothing to show off yet.

My planned sewing "vacation" didn't turn out to be much of one: up until Sunday afternoon I ran a low fever, not serious enough to be concerning to the doctor, just noticeable enough to make me feel a bit blah and restless. So I did do a fair amount of sewing stuff, just flitted from project to project. I got part of a blog post on Inkscape pattern drafting, part of a new pattern done, part of my works in progress sewn... oh well.

After that... Read more

Hedgehog in the wild

Karen in Wichita — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 21:06:35 -0500

Melody of Treasures Under The Willow Tree made a blue hedgehog out of my open-source plush hedgehog pattern. You need to go read it, just to see how she made the blue plush fabric. That's dedication.

I've had it on my to-do list to add it to the gallery, but haven't gotten around to it yet. But today she marked her twentieth post to her fairly new blog, so it's a good excuse to post now - stop by and say hello in her comments.

Medical Update - good news

Karen in Wichita — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 08:33:10 -0500

I may make an actual sewing-content post later today, but for now I'll just toss out a quick medical update.

I no longer have a gallbladder - took about twice as long as they expected because apparently my organs are not properly, uh, organized. And the gallbladder was inflamed to just short of where they'd switch from laparoscopic to "open" surgery. Otherwise, it went pretty well, and I should only have a excuse to slack off the housework for a couple of days, so I'll see how much sewing I can p... Read more

Keeping an ear to the ground

Karen in Wichita — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:12:47 -0500

Sewing is still theoretically on hold (though actually I got some waiting-room sewing done today on both the snowshoe hare and the flower bunny, but nothing worth showing) until post-op, so I'll continue my topical posting with some business advice. Maybe I'll make this a regular Monday feature.

Even if you're not a blogger yourself, if you're running a craft business (or let's face it: any sort of business), you probably ought to keep track of what people are saying about you. There are some nif... Read more

The difference between knockoffs and infringement

Karen in Wichita — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:16:41 -0500

I've been cogitating a bit more on the Alimrose fooferaw, and I came to a little bit of a realization. I'm still not a lawyer, but I think I know something Alimrose doesn't, or didn't.

See, it baffled me that Susan would say (in the deleted but not entirely gone Moopy post), "...we have not breached any copyright..." when we're all looking at the side-by-side pictures and going, "They're all but identical!" I'm guessing that what she's saying is not that the design isn't a copy (that's undeniable... Read more

Open source vs. not

Karen in Wichita — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:44:18 -0500

Or, "Scuse me while I get my RANT on!"

I have, in the past, explained one of my rationales for open-sourcing my patterns, and not minding if the results were re-sold. I feel like even if no significant creativity goes into it ("creating" a plushie isn't, for purposes of copyright infringement, the same thing), you're putting enough sweat-of-the-brow effort into it - sewing, or if you're doing it on a larger scale, sourcing and marketing and whatnot. Even if you're just selling the patterns on eBa... Read more

It's official

Karen in Wichita — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:46:21 -0500

[Sonogram]

I had a sonogram this morning, and I had entirely too much fun taking this picture to bear guild tonight. But seriously: I meet with the surgeon on Thursday to schedule gallbladder removal. Whee. The good news is, I should have a really good excuse to just sit around and sew for awhile.

And needlefelt. I haven't done much of that in awhile, and after the previous post I got out a scrub brush and tried felting on it. The difference is amazing. So in my next trip to the store, I bought a... Read more

Conures, sludge, and bumps

Karen in Wichita — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 16:31:59 -0500

For Christmas, I got a Clover needlefelting tool. It was on my wishlist, sans the accompanying brush, because I have a ton of foam blocks that I do my needlefelting on, and anyway the Clover tool is mostly for appliqueing, which in my case happens on an already-stuffed critter. Plus, I'm frugal... okay, cheap... and I figured I'd buy a non-Clover-brand brush for a fraction of the price.

Now, let's back up a little. I mentioned, back when I posted the first draft of the revision of the sun conure... Read more

Apple, the Teddy Pig

Karen in Wichita — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:31:12 -0500

With Apple, Cat's now officially made more Teddy Pigs than I have - I actually have a work-in-progress Teddy Javelina I'll have to put together soon, just to keep up.

[Apple on Flickr]

Apple's currently on Bid4Bears: I'll just link to all the RaggyRat on Bid4Bears items since auctions are time-sensitive... and hey, that way you can see her other fun stuff there too.

Sketch vs. pattern

Karen in Wichita — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:22:26 -0500

I've been doing some desultory work on pattern tutorials, which eventually I'll put together into something coherent. But it's just not happening right now, because things are too, well, desultory. Still, I think this marks the first usage of the "drafting" tag, which hopefully will be more informative in the future.

[http://images.silverseams.com/gallery/bestiary/sketch_gryphon5_th.gif]
But because this is topical, you get a peek. Here's a screencap (to no particular scale) of the work in progres... Read more

Simplifying the sun conure

Karen in Wichita — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:21:27 -0500

This would have been Work In Progress Friday, except there was no work and no progress on account of yes, the strep test was positive, to no one's surprise.

I'm not getting my germs on anything textile-related, but bacteria aren't transmitted via graphics files, so here you go:

The simplified sun conure pattern draft.

No neck joint, and most of the seams are now symmetrical - that is, you're sewing two curves together with both pieces of fabric lying flat (or at least doing so in the area you're se... Read more

The return of Work In Progress Friday

Karen in Wichita — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 23:12:22 -0500

It's not much, but it's a start.
[gryphon WIP]
One gryphon foreleg.
[snowshoe hare WIP]
One snowshoe hare hind leg. (The range of the Snowshoe Hare does not typically overlap with that of the Jayhawk. Artistic license.)

Current works and their progress, in descending order of priority:

Snowshoe hare: Set aside so long he doesn't even have an entry in the new blog, just in Flickr: snowshoe hare progress
Gryphon pattern test: What you see is what I got.
Sun conure pattern revision: I've printed the pattern out... Read more

Easter eggs

Karen in Wichita — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:31:42 -0500

There's a little trick to remember when turning spheres into eggs, that's useful whenever you have a seam (or an intersection of seams) that needs to be part of a smooth curve.

You may remember the fabric spheres patterns, in a variety of segment counts. Suppose, as is seasonally appropriate this week, you want to sew an egg instead of a sphere. Specifically, a chicken egg. Some eggs are pretty much spherical, others are more elliptical, but in this case an egg that's more or less spherical at on... Read more

Cheer up, emo bird!

Karen in Wichita — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:37:12 -0500

[http://images.silverseams.com/gallery/bestiary/sketch_gryphon4_th.gif]

Monday really isn't a good No Housework Day for me. When the husband goes back to work and the kiddo goes back to school, I get caught up on cleaning up after them. In a way, it's the start of my weekend.

Usually.

This is spring break, so there's no school. And instead of giving me a respite when he came home Sunday night, my husband gave me another patient when he came home Sunday afternoon, with a herniated disc. Whee!

So I di... Read more

Skip the Rabbit

Karen in Wichita — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 12:21:01 -0500

[Skip the Rabbit group]

Is it me, or does that sound like a rallying cry to de-secularize Easter, or perhaps to rail against the practice of giving live animals as Easter presents, or something?

Actually, it's the name of a pattern from the long-lost Kunin Felt archives, which I've revived with the help of the Wayback Machine and Google. I've got the similar Blossom Bear in cleanup, and will see how many others I can reconstruct. Unfortunately, the non-featured patterns were accessed via a search... Read more

RSS in Plain English

Karen in Wichita — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 09:57:00 -0500

Here is my lazy content for today:

If you don't understand syndication, watch that video. One important bit they left out: "RSS" is sometimes called "Atom", or "XML", or "RDF" - don't let the terminology confuse you, they're just niceties of the formatting, and your aggregator will deal with them all pretty much the same. "Feed" is a more generic term, and usually the one I use. (If you have to make a decision, go with Atom; it's the best-spec'd of the current formats, but generally you won't see... Read more