Finally getting started

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Well, December, January, and February saw my family buying a house, renovating a house, and moving into a house…and then the long task of unpacking and getting settled! There’s only a few boxes left and I now have the mental space to get going with tutorials.

Wow, what a response to my poll in the last post! Thank you so much for all of the encouragement. Looking now at my past stab binding experiments, there are a lot. So I thought it might be fun to have another poll, and see what you guys would like to learn first.

One of these four designs is what I’m considering starting with:

A: “Notched” B: “Pentagons” C: “Stars” D: “Tire treads”

I tried to pick a few designs that weren’t too simple, but also not too crazy complicated in terms of number of holes (I’m looking at you, “Elephants”, with 96 holes!). Tell me which one you’d like to learn how to sew! I will be using Gumroad to upload the pdfs. I am also going to be publishing under the channel ‘Loops and Sparks’ instead of Becca Making Faces, but I’ll be leaving this blog the same.

Let me know in the comments if there is a different pattern you are really hoping to see!

A new way to share pattern tutorials

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Hello world! I still exist!

I have been thinking about the various stab binding patterns that I have posted over the years, and how many of you who have found my blog would love to have tutorials for more of them. However, my time is limited and I have been trying to figure out the best way of doing this, that would help generate my family a little extra income. There are a lot of ways I could do this, by creating pdfs of the tutorials that could be purchased and downloaded for a small price (around $8-10 US), or by starting a YouTube channel with free patterns (the more simple ones), and then a members-only section that would have access to paid patterns (the more elaborate ones).

Please fill out the form below to tell me what you prefer!

I would possibly still post previews here on this blog about content elsewhere, and if I come up with a new pattern, I would post that as well.

For me personally, I like the idea of a Youtube channel because of the possibility of a community forum, where you could talk with me and ask for specific designs, as well as motivate me because nothing helps an artist continue like people who are interested in her work! :)

Thanks for sticking with me, even after a 4 year absence!

Creating with light beams

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Update to a post I made back in October 2015! So yeah. My husband and I decided to invest in the new Glowforge laser, as part of the highly discounted crowdfunding campaign. We knew it wasn’t ready to ship, but decided that it was worth waiting for (a) because of the features, and (b) because decent lasers were mostly waaaay out of our budget, and (c) we were in the process of moving to France and didn’t know when we’d have a place for it anyway. Then as the months rolled by, the company discovered that they weren’t as far along with the development as they thought either. Cue lots of projected finish dates that were missed, I think at least three major ones. Finally though, last fall they started shipping production machines, first to US backers, then to international backers.

We got ours (in France) a month ago, well over two years after we purchased. Can I just say, that it is great to *finally* have the machine, and to have it work so amazingly well (as was promised all along)? Behold!

Maker:L,Date:2017-9-19,Ver:5,Lens:Kan03,Act:Kan02,E-YInitial setup…it liiiiives!

Maker:L,Date:2017-9-19,Ver:5,Lens:Kan03,Act:Kan02,E-YIt is WAY BIGGER in person that you think from pictures. Even though I knew the specs I was a little shocked. Notice too our window venting setup. Our windows are a meter and a half tall, and open inward. The simple venting setup that most of the US users are able to do was not possible here, which is part of why we haven’t used the machine as much as we wanted to since getting it – it took us a while to figure out a solution.

Maker:L,Date:2017-9-19,Ver:5,Lens:Kan03,Act:Kan02,E-Y
Maker:L,Date:2017-9-19,Ver:5,Lens:Kan03,Act:Kan02,E-Y

First test! I took a rubber stamp I had carved, made an impression on a piece of paper, stuck it in the laser bed, took a scan with the camera in the laser’s lid, and then etched it in some of the wood called ‘Proofgrade™’ that the Glowforge company developed. Seriously, it’s amazing. It is pre-finished, has a mask laser so the soot and overburn from the heat of the laser don’t mar the surface (you peel it off after) and has a barcode that the machine recognizes so you don’t even have to input any settings, if you don’t want to. SO SIMPLE. They don’t have a distribution center of Proofgrade in Europe yet, but they’re working on it. I can’t wait! But really…other than needing a computer connected to wifi to hit ‘print’…I didn’t need any kind of design software to do this test. Pretty wild.

Maker:L,Date:2017-9-19,Ver:5,Lens:Kan03,Act:Kan02,E-YDid an experiment with cork to see how it worked. I colored it with sharpies afterward. Ikea placemats ftw! Which I just noticed they aren’t selling anymore. Blast.

Maker:L,Date:2017-9-19,Ver:5,Lens:Kan03,Act:Kan02,E-Y
Maker:L,Date:2017-9-19,Ver:5,Lens:Kan03,Act:Kan02,E-Y
Maker:L,Date:2017-9-19,Ver:5,Lens:Kan03,Act:Kan02,E-Y
Maker:L,Date:2017-9-19,Ver:5,Lens:Kan03,Act:Kan02,E-Y

I made a memory game of letter characters from scripts around the world. The cards turned out so well! Because I could, I picked characters that made specific sounds, to spell out the names of everyone in my family. The name of each script is on the bottom left, and the sound the letter makes is on the bottom right.

Maker:L,Date:2017-9-19,Ver:5,Lens:Kan03,Act:Kan02,E-YBut one of the coolest things about this machine is that you can make more than just pretty things, you can make FUNCTIONAL things. Like this ‘stopgap’ for the dumb hole between the table and my son’s high chair. He’s still working on picking up foods, and squishy/slimy ones are particularly difficult…and nearly always ended up on the floor from going through this hole. I’m not patient enough of an engineer to get everything perfect the first time, but several iterations with cardboard later, I found a solution that works and better yet is easy to clean! And so far my son hasn’t figured out how to take it off, ha.

SO: my recommendation? If you have enough funds for it, GET IT. If you’re a hobbyist, an artist, a tinkerer, retired, have a small creative business, this is a great tool. If you’re an inventor it’s great too. If you want to make thousands of one thing to sell, you’d probably be better off elsewhere. One thing I do have to also promote is the Glowforge community on the forum. I was a pretty involved member for the first two years (basically until my son was born, after which I had no energy and/or brain cells left for anything else) and it is a great place to learn and ask questions and have silly conversations. I know for certain that it’s the only reason quite a few people were able to stick out the long wait!

USE MY REFERRAL CODE: for a Pro to get $500 off, for a Plus to get $250 off, and for a Basic (which is what I have) to get $100 off. Machines are delivering now within 10 days!*

*One note for international buyers… if you’re in Europe, Switzerland, or the UK, it might take a bit longer than the continental US but you’ll get your machines fairly quickly. Those initial backers in Canada, Australia and Singapore are still waiting for the certifications to be approved, and are looking at estimated times of getting their machines in November, a full three years after they purchased. They aren’t happy. But here’s hoping the certs will come through sooner rather than later…

Sneak peak

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I’ve been busy with a lot of things these past couple of months, not the least of which was an intensive French course paid for by the French government, as part of my visa requirements, and all the visits, appointments, and paperwork necessary to purchase an apartment in France (So. Many. Documents.). But here’s a sneak peak of what I’ve been very slowly working on. Hopefully I will be able to complete the project sometime soon!

preparations

sneakpeak

Japanese stab bind #51: taco shells

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This bind design sketch started out quite differently, but I couldn’t get the logistics to work right so it morphed into this one. It continues my exploration of circles in this medium. So not what I was hoping for, but not bad either. Those three holes at the bottom right of each semi-circle have to be extremely large to accommodate all the threads coming in and out of it! This bind has 36 holes, probably intermediate level. Distance from spine is 1 3/8″ or 3.4cm.

JSB- taco shells

JSB- taco shells detail

Japanese stab bind #50: elephants

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This elephant pattern was somewhat of a challenge to draw, but even worse for creating the holes. Unless you are very, very careful, this pattern probably can’t get much smaller than what it is here, 1.25″/3.1cm from the spine edge. Those holes around the tusks are *very* close together. It also requires 96 holes, just for three elephants! I’d definitely call it an advanced pattern, if only for the setup. Pretty adorable, right?

JSB- elephant

JSB- elephant2

Japanese stab binding tutorial: tiara

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jsb-tiara

By popular request, the tiara pattern. Sorry this has taken so long, I’ve had a lot of personal stuff going on and I thought I had lost the pattern instructions and was going to have to recreate them from memory, but I found the paper today, yay! So here it is. A beginning bind, with only one small tricky part in the middle. Click on any photo to enlarge.

hole pattern

jsb.tiara.holes

sewing pattern

jsb.tiara

EXIT = needle pointed DOWN and ENTER = needle pointed UP
=====
enter 1 (leave a tail but don’t knot it), wrap right edge, enter 1 again
exit 2, wrap around spine, exit 2 again
enter 1
exit 3
enter 4
exit 3
enter 5
exit 6
enter 5
exit 7
enter 8
exit 7
enter 9
exit 10
enter 9
exit 2
enter 9
exit 11
enter 4
exit 11, wrap around spine, exit 21
wrap around spine through loop, point left, exit 11
enter 12
exit 6
enter 12
exit 13
enter 8
exit 13
enter 14
exit 15
enter 14
exit 16
enter 10
exit 16
enter 17
exit 18
enter 17
exit 19
enter 20
exit 19
enter 21
exit 23
enter 21
exit 22
enter 28
exit 22
enter 15
exit 22
enter 24
exit 18
enter 24
exit 25
enter 20
exit 25
enter 26
exit 23
enter 26
exit 27, wrap around left edge, exit 27 again
enter 28, wrap around spine, enter 28 again
exit 27
enter 26
exit 25
enter 24
exit 22
enter 21
exit 19
enter 17
exit 16
enter 14
exit 13
enter 12
exit 11
enter 9
exit 7
enter 5
exit 3, tie off

jsb-tiaradetail

Japanese stab binding #49: giraffe

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I’ve started a series of animal stab binds, just to see how many I can create and how recognizable they are. Next up, elephants and a lion!

This giraffe bind has 55 holes and is only complicated in the middle, as the holes look random when unsewn and knowing which is which is a bit tricky. Otherwise it’s pretty straightforward! It would make a cute baby book/picture album.

JSB- giraffe-side

JSB- giraffe