Love My New Toy

I bought a new toy and I am so excited about it. After the Silhouette Cameo disappointment in 2013, I shelved the idea of using a cutting machine for my crafting projects. But when my brother recommended a laser cutter to me, I revisited the idea. I spent most of a day watching videos for various laser cutters, but they are so expensive, and I wasn't sure I would use it enough to justify the cost and space needed. 

So when I ran across a video for the Cricut Maker 3 and I discovered it had a special fabric cutting blade, I was persuaded to try that instead. I've had it less than a week and I'm already in love.

I decided I wanted to try English Paper Piecing and I used the Cricut to cut out the cardstock paper shapes.

I didn't really know what I was doing so it didn't have a 100% success rate on my cutting, but the failures were my own fault because I laid out pieces so they shared edges. Apparently, that's a no no. 

When I tried the next day to cut out a second project and left a gap between all the pieces, I had virtually no problems. I could not believe how quickly I was able to cut out these perfect octagons!

I cut out all of the paper and fabric pieces for the paper-pieced flower blocks in this little lap quilt in about 6 hours total (including the design time).

I'm loving having a handwork project I can carry around with me. I don't think it will take me too long to get these blocks finished now that I've gotten started.

(Re)Started Quilt Blog

This blog started as a way for us to share with our family what we were up to after we moved out of state. But over time, as we remodeled our craftsman home in Laurelhurst, it morphed into a historic house remodel blog. It was a way for me to save info I had researched and as a way to record progress on our projects. But I have shifted a lot of my leisure activities to fabric crafts now and they don't really fit into the Laurelhurst Craftsman house theme. I will still use this blog for our gardening and woodworking projects since they still benefit this house.

Once the weather warms up we do hope to do another round of woodworking. I would very much like to finish my master bedroom closet. We decided to try and make the cabinets ourselves but the pandemic brought our progress to a halt. I'm hoping we'll get back to work on the project later this year.

Anyway, since I am seriously considering starting a long arm quilting business, I decided I should shift my sewing-related posts over to my long-abandoned quilt blog. Once I figure out a new name, I'll change the name of the blog, but I will leave it as it is for now.

If you're here primarily for the quilt posts, I would encourage you to follow that blog. I will start using that blog to post about project progress and challenges I am participating in.

I have posted a new post over there.

Keeping Busy

I've now finished sifting all the old file boxes. I still have a bunch of shredding left to do, but I now have a stack of 14 empty plastic file tubs. Woo hoo! I figure I'll shred stuff until my shredder dies, and then I'll bring the rest into a commercial shredder and pay to have the project finished.

I've already spent three days scanning old photographs. I had about five tubs of old family photos I wanted to digitize. I've mostly finished scanning the photos in two of them. I'm also planning to disassemble the majority of my old photo albums and scan those photos too then discard the albums. It's not like we ever look at them. Most of them never even got unpacked in our current house. I'll probably keep our wedding album, but most of the rest of them will be discarded. I have to admit, I'm rather enjoying this project. It's fun to remember so many old memories.

Our first pet as a married couple: a rabbit named Chacko.

Jeff cuddled up with our beloved dog named Lady. She was our
first border collie mix and she was adored by everyone who met her.

I've also started listing stuff for sale. It feels like I've been selling books for forever and we've probably downsized our book collection by more than 50%, but now I'm also looking around and doing the easy stuff. I realized I could list most of my cross stitch pattern books on Amazon, so I worked on that over the weekend. I had 57 cross stitch patterns; 25 of them were designed by Teresa Wentzler. Even if I spent the rest of my life doing cross stitch, I doubt I would have finished all those projects, so I've decided to keep three or four of them and get rid of the rest.

I wish I'd been more motivated to work on the Teresa Wentzler designs during my life because they really are beautiful projects, but they're just so damn time-consuming.  My current cross stitch project I started way back in the 90s and I pull it out occasionally and work on it almost full-time for a week or two until I get distracted and it's still only maybe halfway done. It looks like the last time I blogged about working on it was in July 2016. Here it is in its current state. I think I'll take it to Prineville for our next visit because we haven't yet turned on the internet so there's actually a slim chance I'll work on it there.

"The Storyteller" by Teresa Wentzler. Work in progress.

Our apple tree in the front yard is covered in apples. They've started falling on the ground and we really need to start using them. It would be a shame for them to go to waste because they really are quite good. So we're also trying to squeeze in time this week to make apple butter. It sounds like it's faster to make it in the Instant Pot, so we're going to try that.

I've been really impressed with how many apples this small Liberty apple tree has made.
If we can, we're going to buy the same variety for the new house.

I Should Be Sewing

I really wanted to finish recovering my couches by now, but every time I walk up to my sewing room and sit down to sew, I just don't feel like doing it. I've been on a bit of a Netflix binge, but I am trying to come up with another productive activity I feel like doing. I've been thinking about working on a cross stitch project I started a very long time ago (more than 15 years).

It's called "The Storyteller" and was designed by Teresa Wentzler. Teresa's projects are extremely complex and you cannot be watching TV at the same time. Most of the colors are actually one strand of two different colors and many "squares" on the fabric are actually made up of two half-squares. I think I'll give this a shot and see if I can get into it. This is a beautiful project, I'd love to finally finish it. Here is where I'm at:

This is what the finished project looks like (stolen from this website):

We're also working on cleaning house -- really cleaning house -- because Jeff has invited a group of friends to visit in a week and we want the house to look nice. It's gotten to be a mess during our ongoing remodel projects.

Cutting Applique Patterns

So I am done ranting about my new Silhouette Cameo. It is very good at what it does, and what it does is cut paper products. So I'm trying to figure out if I can still accomplish at least part of what I was hoping to do with this machine.

I have quite a few applique projects I would like to make. The first one I am hoping to make is a cushion design I found in a 1902 book on "Progressive Design." I think I'm going to start with the one on the top right.

Before my experiments with cutting fabric, I had gone through and imported the design into the Silhouette Studio Designer Edition software. In this example, it actually worked best to size the cushion design up to the finished measurement (16"x16") and then manually draw around the shapes to make the pieces.

I'm only going to make one set; I'll just repeat the pieces 4 times for the pillow.

Then I found the software had a really great offset tool, so I could easily have the program add the 1/4" seam allowance.

Then I went through and arranged the pieces on two separate sheets. The smaller pieces I'm going to have the Cameo "etch" on the mylar and then I'll go over it with a cutter to separate the pieces. The second sheet, with the larger pieces, I'm going to cut out of cardstock and I'll use them as pattern pieces to trace onto the fabric.

I don't actually need the mylar pieces, but I was thinking it would be so much easier to iron over the 1/4" seam allowance if I can fold the fabric edges around the smaller mylar piece. And ironing first will make it much easier to sew these pieces down on the background fabric.

(A couple days later) Done!

Silhouette Cameo Fabric Cutting Tests

So, I've been trying to figure out what I can use this Silhouette Cameo for. The box claims it will cut fabric.

I have a bunch of applique projects I'd like to make, so my next test was cutting fabric. The paper manual that comes with the unit does not tell you how to cut fabric, but it does mention being able to cut canvas, so I had to go google searching.

I'd really like to make my projects with linen—as they did in period—so I started with a linen scrap. I will say, for this project, the super aggressive sticky mat was useful, but it still wasn't quite enough to keep the fabric in place.

I tested the linen three times with different settings; it didn't work. This was the most successful test.

It did score the fabric, so if I was desperate I could finish the cuts with scissors. Admittedly, I didn't really expect the linen to work, so I wasn't surprised when it didn't.

Next I tried cotton fabric, which they do specifically claim the Cameo will cut. That went better, but it still didn't work very well. (And yes, I did use a brand new fabric blade; not one I dulled trying to cut mylar.)

That piece missing originally looked scored like the other two ovals; I took my embroidery scissors and snipped the piece out.

Again, when you dig deeper, you find out in order to actually be able to cut fabric, you have to buy their Clean Cut Fabric Interfacing and first apply it to the fabric. The cost: $8 for a 36"x17" piece. So, if I was doing a large project—like a queen size iris quilt—this would add more than $16 a yard to the material cost.

And, I don't particularly want a permanent interfacing on the back of the fabric. I need to be able to turn under 1/4" around the edges to sew down the piece. Though, I have not purchased the $8 fabric interfacing Silhouette sells; maybe once you're done cutting the fabric it will remove easily. I don't know. I'm getting so I don't care enough to try and figure it out.

So, there you have it. The Silhouette Cameo is not a magic machine that cuts fabric and reusable stencils. If you want to cut paper products and one-use stencils (and are willing to pay their high cost for their vinyl), it is an amazing tool! Mylar or fabric, not so much.

This stupid thing could very well end up on craigslist shortly. I am so disappointed about wasting more than $300 (including the software upgrade) on it.

And I'm sorry about the rant for folks who have NO interest in this machine. I'm mostly frustrated because I spent so many hours researching this before I bought it, but the information just isn't out there about what exactly it would and would not cut, so I felt a need to share my results which differed so much from those implied in other websites and chat forums. Maybe I can spare some future person from the disappointment.

Update later: I have had somebody tell me that I should have done more research before trying to cut fabric. Well, I'm not sure what further research they wanted me to do. I read the manual that came with the machine and it did NOT provide any information on cutting fabric nor did the Cameo website. Why should I rely on other bloggers to tell me how to use it? How am I to know which folks got their machines for free and are therefore biased? I am not in the business of selling Cameos, so I do not apologize that I might be harming their sales by advertising my failure to get their machine to work. If they'd like me to remove these posts, then they can take my machine back and refund all of the money I wasted on it.

More Quilted Ball Ornaments

Sharon is really enjoying making these "quilted" ball ornaments in the evenings. She obviously purchased more styrofoam balls and she had to buy lots more pins too. She's made a dent in her quilting fabric scrap bin. Such fun!

Latest Batch of Ornaments

Sharon continues to seek productivity in front of the TV so she has managed to make several more ornaments.

This first one was made from wool scraps using the ornament pattern provided here: How To: Vintage Felt Baubles. Sharon skipped the ric rac step because she doesn't like the stuff!

This next batch of ornaments was made from folded fabric and was quite fun to make. There are great directions at a couple of different blogs. The square shape ornaments are actually folded from circles and the tutorial is found here: Triangle Tree Tutorial.

The triangle-shaped ornaments were made from hexagons and the tutorial is found here:
Fabric Ornament Number Two.

The funky hexagon-shaped ornament (far left) was actually a mistake, but Sharon liked it well enough to go ahead and finish it with a button. It was made from a triangle, but the original triangle wasn't large enough to fold for the second step. The tutorial is found here:  Fabric Ornament Number One. She'll have to give this one another try with a larger triangle.

Ornaments from Scraps

Sharon would like to make all of the ornaments for the tree for our Winter Solstice/25th Anniversary celebration later this year. She has compiled quite a few neat ornament ideas and is planning to try many of them over the next several months. She will try and share her successes and failures here for others who might want to try making their own ornaments.

Our first try was weaving stars from fabric scraps. They turned out well and were fun to make. Even Jeff spent a couple hours making them and enjoyed the project. We made like twenty of them over two evenings in front of the TV. Finally, we just had to stop, or the whole tree would end up covered in them! There is a tutorial here for how to make them.

Change of Pace

Sharon decided to spend her day on a sewing project. She built the center portion of the quilt backing. Though, she didn't complete the backing as she needs to calculate the overall size first.

Sharon has gotten it into her mind to make all of the ornaments for our Winter Solstice celebration. Today she made her first ornament from a couple of the William Morris reproduction fabric scraps leftover from this project. It was pretty fun! She definitely needs to make a few more of these! There is a tutorial here for how to make it if anyone else would like to try.

Made a few more this evening while we were watching TV!

My Latest Sewing Project

With us square dancing again, I've been thinking it would be fun to make a new skirt. Then while I was hanging out this weekend, this idea came to me. I'm planning to piece it like a quilt. I think I'll need to make at least a dozen of these two-gore panels. I'm also planning to add a strip of purple between the finished heart panels to separate the hearts. I suspect this project will go together much faster than a quilt!


I'm still working on getting the gore pattern right, so I haven't started it yet. All my square dance patterns are in storage, so I'm trying to decide if it's worth the trip to go pick them up. A gore is not very hard to design, but you do need to make sure you have enough of them to make a full circle. Here are the fabrics I've chosen.

This is the blouse I plan to wear with it. It's always good to wear a purple blouse on a holiday when everybody else is wearing red!

Okay, it's too late for this Valentine's Day, but I'll be all set for next year!

Slow Progress on Stained Glass

Well, I managed to make some more progress on our stained glass. I'm pretty picky about getting the glass to fit precisely, so the going is pretty slow. Today I mostly fine-tuned pieces that were already cut out to make sure they fit together properly, coppered them, and, for the first time, I tried my hand at soldering. Decided it was time to solder because Jeff works during the day and by the time he gets home the sunroom is dark and so we can go days between sessions of stained glass because he cannot get to the project during the daytime.

It's actually difficult, but I'm going to stop for the day. That table really is too low and I don't want to overdo again and strain my back. Oh, and I drew my first blood on this project! It's actually surprising that it's taken this long, we are working with cut glass after all. It was a clean cut on my fingertip and not really a big deal.

This afternoon I'm hoping to make some progress on one of the boy's quilts. After having a thoroughly unproductive weekend this weekend (we watched all three seasons of Arrested Development), I've decided I need to have hand projects like this queued up so when I pass 30+ hours watching TV (well, really a computer) I can be making forward progress on a project. I've got the binding cut out and pieced for one of the twins' quilts and I need to cut down the edges of the quilt and then sew the binding down on the edge. I finish the backside of the binding by hand. I've never been happy when I've totally sewn it down by machine; it's too sloppy on the back.

BTW, for those interested, the first season of Arrested Development was the only season worth watching (wish we had known that). The first season was very funny, but the same jokes lost their luster through the second and third season. Small wonder it was cancelled. You can find it at Hulu.

6PM Update: I actually managed to have a pretty good afternoon. Got a bit more stained glass done, plus I also managed to machine sew the binding on one of the twins' quilts. I'm goofing off reading the ever more pessimistic economic news tonight. It took a long time, but it looks like house prices are finally crashing throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and Santa Clara County. Too late to help us though, because it happened after we lost our stock portfolio. =)

Progress on Stained Glass

I woke up all motivated to tackle our Heraldic stained glass project—I don't want to move it in pieces. I've gotten stalled on my rabbit, because the turtle isn't done. We need the glass to be more stable, before I can cut detailed pieces that surround the rabbit, so I have thrown my energy into helping Jeff with the turtle and into starting the coppering process. We made some good progress this morning and we'll work on it again in a couple of hours to see if we can get another row of diamonds done.

The little white dots on the edges of the glass is solder to lock the pieces together in place. Jeff will do a more complete solder job when we're closer to being done. At this point, you just solder lightly to keep the pieces from shifting, but you might need to move something so you solder sparingly.


We FAXed over our rejection of the seller's addendum this morning so this ends an interesting chapter in our lives, at least for now. We've offered that if they want to reconsider our offer in the next few weeks, they can let our realtor know.

Here is the progress we made on our stained glass panel today:


We're watching the 5-hour version of Pride & Prejudice tonight. We started it this afternoon while we were taking a break to rest our feet.

Worked on Stained Glass

On our mission to finish projects before we move, I pushed myself to get restarted on our Heraldic Stained Glass Window. I actually did one of the hardest parts for the rabbit's half; breaking the purple glass for the border. We bought this lovely purple glass, but there wasn't really enough of it to cut extra pieces if we goofed up. And, of course, the first cut broke wrong. It had me quite nervous about the rest of the cuts. Luckily, everything else worked out fine and I managed to get it out of the glass. Though the glass looks black laying down, it is actually a very pretty purple water glass.

I'm hoping to continue work on the clear diamond field tomorrow. And then once I'm done with the rabbit's half, I'll continue work on Jeff's turtle.

Also, here are some pictures from our earlier project sessions.