About Me

I’ve had some kind of block lately and have to force myself to write. This is an exercise. The website name was also an exercise in self-acceptance many years ago. I grew up disliking my name, but in retrospect that may have been because people only called me by it when they were angry. I…

Spirographs in Ivy Draw
|

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
|

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
|

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…

Sushi Cushion to Sew

Sushi Cushion to Sew

Here’s a great project from a reader named Susan. She wanted to sew a sushi pillow as a gift for her grandson, and happened across my spirals page while looking for ideas. I had no idea “sushi pillow” was a thing, but when I googled for it, it looks like many people have made one….