While today is the final day of this event… Events like this to me never really end because the future will come and hopefully you will make the patterns offered during this event and you’ll show us what you did with them. That’s why I do a show and tell day for this event because I would like to give you some ideas of what you can do with your rows.
Today’s designers have created something with there row, or rows from other designers. It’s always fun to see what they came up with and show off the patterns that were presented over these last six weeks.
The Winner of Electric Quilt 8 is K. Johnson
She won with her entry by visiting Barbara Dieges Shop.
Electric Quilt is offering a 20% off coupon until October 23, 2018 for any of there products except EQ Academy. This is a great discount if you’ve been thinking about purchasing or upgrading EQ, or even purchasing some of the addons. The coupon code is:
STBSRA20
All other winners for Oct 2, and Oct 4 will be announced tomorrow morning in my post.
Zooming onto the scene today came Sure Cuts Alot version 5. This new version has so many great new features it’s well worth the $24.99 cost to upgrade your software. Of course, if you don’t own SCAL, it is well worth the price in the first place at 75.00 (normally on sale at around 60.00). While I don’t make it a habit to use SCAL to create my SVG files, I do use the software once in awhile especially when I don’t want use Brother Canvas and just want to create my Brother SNC FCM file quickly. Yep, SCAL creates SNC FCM files, but it already did this in version 4.
One of IMHO, the best features of the new upgraded version is a technique called nesting. I first saw this in Silhouette Designer Pro, when a new level was announced with the ability to bring your machine embroidery designs into the software to make your cut files for applique designs. I loved it, but at the time, you had to save files in .studio format only, no ability to export out to SVG, Continue reading →
I’ve talked before about cutting machines and such, but I thought I’d shed some light on specialty techniques for cutting skylines or detailed shapes. In the Row By Row Experience, it is quite common to have rows that come in kits where the shapes are laser cut or precut for you. I can see why this is enticing you to purchase the kit, but did you know you pay a pretty high premium for those precuts? I have been pretty amazed as I sat and watched kits I purchased this year come into my home and many times I didn’t even realize I was purchasing a precut kit or a laser cut kit. I wouldn’t have purchased them had I known because I can already do this very easily. In terms of cost, I purchased a laser cut kit, thinking it was just the normal kit, and the cost was 38.00. When I found out that it was laser cut, I called the shop to find out the cost of the non-laser kit, and it was 19.99. Huge difference, so I paid someone literally $18.00 to cut part of the kit. Some parts aren’t precut, so to me, if I am going to pay $18.00, I think the whole kit should be cut. 🙂
I’ve talked before about cutting machines, but what if I could walk you thru how to do it with just normal scissors also? Yes, sirree, while it may be a bit more tedious to do, it can be done with your normal scissors also and I can show you a way that will make getting those details done quite well.
Please note: While this isn’t a video lesson, like most of my video lessons, I do not make short lessons, this lesson features 57 images in order to give you the best outcome on learning the process, but once you know it, it won’t take as long to do it… I promise you that. 🙂
This technique works whether you use scissors to cut your shapes or a cutting machine. I am going to walk you thru the steps.
Today is March 1, and it’s going to be a month of celebrations and fun. With new and different show casings of crafts.
It’s pretty obvious, I am a quilter, but, before I was a quilter, I was also into a sewing, and crafts. I have even taught classes in sewing and crafting when we lived in Cumberland, MD at So-Fro Fabrics. I really loved it. My first experience with crafting was when I was a young teen, and went to a 4-H meeting where they were doing pottery on the wheel. From that day, and to this, I still love pottery. While I’ve never purchased a potters wheel and kiln, I’ve had the opportunity to dabble with them over the years. Many crafts are done with fabric, and this is where a quilter draws on that knowledge. Probably the first “craft” type items we have seen were done in quilting are Crazy Quilts. Crazy Quilts are the epitomy of a craft type item, which also happens to be a quilt. With Crazy Quilts, you can use charms, buttons, embroidery, cross stitch, netting, lace, just about any type of texture and embellishment and have so much fun with it. As time passed, it also came into more of the “art” type quilts we see today along with wearables. Terial Magic is perfect for these types of projects.
Just a little bit of news here.. I was hoping to post it this past Wednesday, but just totally didn’t have the time to write a post.
Several things, Debbie Kratovil and Esther Aliu have opened Facebook pages, Debbie’s is located here. Esther’s is here. Esther has also moved her yahoo group to Facebook and that group link is here. If you are following their block of the months, you may want to like the pages so you know when they update. Esther’s botm blocks are now available in her Facebook group, so you might want to join that group in order to keep apprised of the updates also. She has noted that for those of you who don’t like Facebook she will be posting the downloads on her blog also, thus, you can subscribe to her blog if you don’t like Facebook.
Sentimental Stitches is doing a fun year long giveaway of her previous vintage patterns, which she is calling Tuesday’s Treasures. The patterns will be available thru 2016. It is located here.
Last month, I was honored to be asked to do a guest post on the Quilting Focus blog site, and I thought I’d post a note about it, if you are interested in reading what my 5 favorite tools are for quilting, have a look at the post here.
For those of you who use cutting machines, I’ve added an updated tutorial for SVG sizing on my page here. It covers how to size in Silhouette Cameo, Make The Cut, and Sure Cuts Alot. It is a video tutorial, it does show some comparison sizing. It is at the bottom of the page.
First and foremost, I only know this information from my own experiences with cutting fabric, creating svg files, and learning the various softwares. Their may be far better or more informative info out there that I haven’t found or tried.
In theory, all svg’s should be made the same, but unfortunately, they are not. Make The Cut (here in known as MTC) which is a software that I really like, does not play well with it’s svgs when opened in Silhouette Studio. Any svg made in MTC needs to be resized once it’s opened in Silhouette Studio. Silhouette of America has chosen not to fix this error and it’s definitely in the Silhouette software that this problem exists.
When you open a svg created in MTC in other softwares such as Sure Cuts Alot (here in known as SCAL), the svg opens to the correct size. If you resave that svg in SCAL, it will open to the correct size in Silhouette Studio.
It’s always funny to see peoples reactions to upgrades or updates to software. Silhouette Studio Designer Edition v3 has been no different. Based on the various reactions I’ve seen on the net whether it’s been blogs or on youtube, or even in yahoo groups, it’s definitely been a interesting experience to watch people try to play catch up. I’m not making fun of it, I’m just finding it interesting that so few people realized what the upgrade was going to have as new functions in the software. It does make me wonder who beta tested the software prior to it’s release. For quilters, the new upgrade has made things a bit easier, and in some ways more difficult. Several of the coolest new features such as the ability to now open and bring pdf files into the software is great news, but not the process in which it takes to create the cutting file. I would have thought Silhouette could have done a better job of this considering that so many other softwares convert pdf in a much better and easier way. The other is the new Nesting feature, a feature I haven’t done anything with yet, but was watching a video on youtube of how it works and thought WOW, as quilters we are going to love that feature. Essentially, the Nesting feature allows the shapes to move as close together as possible so no waste can occur. Amazing!! With this lesson I will show you how to open a pdf file and get it to the point where you can cut your fabric. Where .svg is concerned, you can follow the lesson for Silhouette 2.9 to work a svg file. Where differences occur, I will note that below in this lesson. The cutting process is different in Silhouette v3. To do this lesson you will need the paid version of the software
The video is 47 minutes long. It can help aid where pictures or the images below may not help, watching can give you a good overview to follow the lesson below also.
Open Silhouette Studio Design Edition v3
It doesn’t matter which button you click here, for the work table, both the “Open” and the “Design” will take you to the same place. It’s just the “Store” and “Library” that will take you to those parts of the software.
Click the Open Icon or go to File, Open in the menu.
Use the Files of Type window to see and choose the pdf.
Choose your pdf file and click ok.
When your pdf has more than 1 page of template shapes, you’ll have the option to choose which page you want to work on. In this case I chose page 2
These images will be different from the video, the sample pdf provided for this lesson will also be different shapes, but the lesson is still the same.
Add Media
You can choose a different dpi which may help to improve the quality, but I honestly didn’t notice a difference in the video when I chose to use the 600dpi.
Click Import
The pdf image will then appear on your worktable.
Because this lesson shows different shapes than the pdf sample does, we will be deleting some parts that aren’t shown in the video.
Because this is a pdf image, we are going to have to Trace the shapes. Click the Trace icon.
Click on Select Trace Area
Drag the area of the image till it’s all covered with the selection.
Once you select the entire area, you’ll see a yellowish line start to appear.
Play with your settings on the trace window.
When I did the video sample, I needed it on to fill the lines. However, when I was creating this original lesson, I had it turned off just fine and got a great yellow line.
What your needing here is to see the yellow lines fully cover your black outlines from the image. it doesn’t matter how the key numbers and letters are, it matters what the outside edges are doing.
Move the threshold up and down until your yellow fills the black areas.
What your trying to avoid happening here is double red lines.
Use your zoom tool to help you do that.
Zoom in to get a closeup comparison.
This is still not filled in well enough.
This is better
and finally I am happy.
Check the rest of the shapes, they should be a strong yellow line.
Click on Trace Outer Edge
You’ll see the redness appear.
Select the image
and drag it away
Once it’s out of the way, you can delete the pdf image. You no longer need it.
All deleted
Click your image again, then right click and choose Release Compound Path.
We do this to separate the shapes.
The little box shapes should show up around each shape.
Click outside of the big selection box, and then click an individual shape.
You should be able to move it around at this point.
In this sample, 4 of these shapes are considered embroidery shapes for hand and machine embroidery. They are not needed to be cut, so you can hilight
and delete them.
Move your shapes around enough to allow the ability to add your seam allowance. If your grid is not showing, you can right click on the tab and tell it to show the grid.
or click the grid icon.
Click the Offset icon. This is in a different place than version 2.9.
Select all the shapes
Check the seam allowance, if the numbers are not 0.250 change them to 0.250.
Click the Corner or Round button depending on your preference, then click Apply.
This is how your worktable should look after applying the Offset.
Separate the inside edge
Move each piece outside to the grayed area.
Once they are all moved to the grey background area, click on New, or the New Drawing Icon.
Select the shapes on the grayed area, right click and choose cut.
Go to the New tab and Paste or Paste In Place.
These will be your freezer paper shapes, you can save them as a FP file for later use.
Once you finish the shapes on the tab with the offset, you can save it as a FC.
We are now ready to go and create the cut lines so you can cut your fabric and or your freezer paper cuts.
Click on the Cut Settings icon.
You’ll notice thick red lines on the shapes, why they appear this way I can’t answer and it is confusing, and even tho they appear like cut lines you still need to setup the settings.
By default the line will usually show up as a No Cut when you open the Cut Settings window.
Select all the shapes
Click on the “Cut Edge” in the Cut Style menu.
Even if this is your freezer paper cut, your still going to choose Cut Edge.
The material type is Fabric for Thin fabrics like Cotton Prints.
If this is your freezer paper cut, you would choose Copy Paper instead or find a paper in the list that is lightweight in it’s nature, I use the copy paper line.
Your knife settings will automatically change depending on the material type. However, it is rare that you will cut fabric on a knife setting of 3. You do not need to change the knife setting on this window, but in the machine itself, you do need to change the knife setting. My setting on my knife is normally at 4, when I cut denim it was on 5.
If your doing freezer paper as a cut, your knife setting will for copy paper will be a 2, while I didn’t notice the 2 when I did freezer paper, I did set my knife on 3 and had a perfect cut without cutting the mat.
If you are marking fabric, freezer paper, or stabilizer, you will change the knife to the sketch pen in the pull down window where it says Ratchet Blade in the image.
A marking cut will also have a “cut style” of cut edge. You can use the No Cut line as well, but it’s because your using the sketch pen that the line doesn’t matter, although no matter what you have to set the line anyway.
Leave all other cut settings alone.
If your machine is not turned on, the “Send To Silhouette” line will be grayed out.
If your machine is turned on, your Send To Silhouette button will be clickable.
Once you click on the Send To Silhouette, another window will appear and you can click Start.
Be sure your mat is laying in the machine tray prior to pressing start.
It’s also worth reading the lesson on version 2.9 of Silhouette Studio. I covered some things and added some tips that may help you in version 3 as well.
While today is the final day of this event… Events like this to me never really end because the future will come and hopefully you will make the patterns offered during this event and you’ll show us what you did with them. That’s why I do a show and tell day for this event because I would like to give you some ideas of what you can do with your rows.
I’ve talked before about cutting machines and such, but I thought I’d shed some light on specialty techniques for cutting skylines or detailed shapes. In the 
