My First Barbie 13.5″ Free Printable Sewing Pattern
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My First Barbie 13.5″ Free Printable Sewing Pattern

Oh guys, it’s been a journey, I must say. More about that later. At the moment I’m *grateful* that I still have technology enough to produce a reasonably decent printable pattern. We have moved off grid, kind of feels like we fell off the world computer-wise. I have Android and a little solar battery and…

Quilt As You Go Potholders

Quilt As You Go Potholders

Easy and quick homemade scrapwork potholders make great DIY gifts! You don’t need a pattern and they’re FREE to make out of fabric scraps. Most of the instructions I found for quilted potholders use bias binding, like commercial potholders. But it’s so hard to sew bias binding on straight. Why not cut the backing larger…

Sewing Pattern for 1999 Bellybutton Barbie One-Shoulder Dress

Sewing Pattern for 1999 Bellybutton Barbie One-Shoulder Dress

Free Printable Pattern. Someone requested an off-the-shoulder dress. I only glanced at the email and suddenly had a great idea how to do that, and in a flash of creativity, produced this. No, no, she had said “off the shoulder”. Oops. Well, I guess it was time for me to make Barbie a one shoulder…

About Me

I’ve had some kind of block lately and have to force myself to write. This is an exercise. “Write something.” The website name was an exercise in self-acceptance many years ago. I grew up disliking my name, but later realized that might have been because my mother only called me it when she was angry….

Spirographs in Ivy Draw
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Spirographs in Ivy Draw

But can it make Spirographs? Yes, it can! Only basic ones, not fancy designs like Illustrator, but they’re pretty and they’re easy and fun. They scratch my Spirograph itch. Here’s a basic oval that was Selection – Duplicated, then the copies rotated. It really only takes moments once you’re used to how Ivy Draw operates….

Enlarge Patterns Without a Printer: Inch Square Grid Method
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Enlarge Patterns Without a Printer: Inch Square Grid Method

If you need to transfer sewing patterns or other patterns from pdf document to paper without a printer, here’s one method using Ivy Draw. Craft magazines used to come with miniature patterns on a grid to be enlarged onto graph paper. Nowadays it’s rare because of printers. But sometimes you don’t have a printer. Ivy…

Update Nov 2021

Here’s the latest tidying of my website! I wanted it to be completely on WordPress since I’m about to move off grid and need to be able to make all my changes online. Wait, does that sound backwards? I’m going where there’s no power, so I won’t be able to run Dreamweaver on my desktop…

Make Charted Needlework Graphs in Adobe Illustrator CS5 using Live Paint
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Make Charted Needlework Graphs in Adobe Illustrator CS5 using Live Paint

The goal was to make a square chart for cross-stitch or needlepoint by tracing a background image onto a grid. I found various methods to make the chart, but nothing about how to color it other than resorting to something like bitmap painting with the fill tool. There are plenty of ways to automatically digitize…