I do so love patches. But I've never ever made one (or had one made). So I'm attempting to remedy this.

Last night, I made a design. Today, I'm going to find someone to make 100 of them for me. Hopefully this design is "patchable". And that patch makers are affordable.

UPDATE 4/17: The proof is here. Me likey!

So I have some friends who march with the local 501st Legion, First State Garrison.

They wanted to engrave helmet stand bases. The stands are stainless steel. I've never tried steel on Glowforgeous Splendiferous, so I'm heading down that rathole. 

First, I did the design file, and a quick cut on wood.  Meh.

Then I tweeked the design file, redid it, again on wood. Better!

But now I notice there are issues with the font where characters overlap. Meh. 

Now discussing with my friends the next steps. Space the font out? Color in the overlap spots? A different font all together??

I also did some research that suggested a coating to use before you attempt to laser steel. So I got a bottle of Dry Moly Lubricant Aerosol Spray. Yup, I'm buying Moly. :-P  . . .My Moly arrives tomorrow. So maybe tomorrow night I'll be etching steel! Assuming I can sort the font issues by then. 

It occurs to me that I never posted finished photos of what I did with the silhouettes I posted about last month.

So here:

I made a cuttouts of my campmates and framed them. I did this 4 times i n various color combinations, and have 1 more to make. (I stopped because I ran out of frames). I made several because some of my campmates wanted their own copies. Here are 2 of the finished product - coffee mug included for scale

And then, with the silhoutte of my daughter, I assembled a wall hanging, and then attempted an inlay. The inlay is not as perfectly flush as I would like, but I'm fine with it as a first try.

So yes, having fun with the Glowforgeous Splendiferous. 

Last night, some nice people said some nice things to me about the mermaid nightgown. So this morning I was inspired to spend time on a skirt made from the remaining mermaid print fabric.

I can't really finish the hemlin until the kid is around again next week.

Someday I will have to get me a serger.

Well over a year ago I bought some mermaid print fabric with intention of making my daughter a nightgown. Today, I finally made it.

I goofed the pattern some, but it's a nightgown, so there is a lot of room for slop. (actually, I didn't so much goof the pattern as pick the wrong pattern, then tried to correct for this after the first few parts were already cut out.)

Anywhoo, she's sleeping in it tonight. Warms the cockles, it does :-) 

I am in a slump, creativity wise. Slogging along. I had the flu 2 weeks ago. Still coughing from that. And the mid-winter blahs doesn't help. And, oh joy, I strained my back 2 days ago so I'm gimpy and grumpy.

Anywhoooo, I saw an ad with silhouettes. And decided I should make some silhouettes on my underused laser cutter in the basement. But first, I needed some silhouettes. So I dug up some photos, and taught myself how to make silhouettes in Gimp (=freeware photoshop).  Source photos for the first 2 below.

The third silhouette is of the 8 campers in my camp last month at LoveBurn. Created from a number of camp photos. . . . next up cutting cardstock with these files. As soon as my back can handle walking down to the basement.

The flag turned out alright. . .it's really red-white-green, but the yellow street lights washed all that out in this video. Also, it was crazy windy for the first 2 days. Snapped our flagpole!

And I cut the stencil for the flag. I'm a bit sad that the stencil is so small, but my lasercutter is only 20" x 12"  :-/  

I'm expecting it to look like this one the flag. Wish it was bigger :-/

I made a flag. White bedsheet, red pillowcase, green material that was just hanging around the house.

And then I attempted to make a stencil for the flag, but I gave up after 5 hours. Well, didn't so much give up as decide my design needed to be simplified. So I walked away from the effort for a while. Hopefully will get back to it soonish.

My Christmas Adam had recovery from a daytrip to NYC, a lovely Christmas gamer dinner party, discovering a new dive bar with an old friendly bass player buying shots, Santa selfies, and lovely nightcaps with the best of friends.

My Christmas Eve had visiting of newborns, wrapping of the gifts, free yams, tearing up at Christmas carols, and the watching of Doctor Who (the Christmas Special from some years back).

My Christmas had family visits, naps, snake cuddles, firepit mashmallows, and vodka infused gummy bears.

My Boxing Day had the ex's cat giving me $50 for the local bar, midol, Cabernet, pillow forts, play date planning, and introspection.

Who knows what tomorrow might bring. Living the dream.