Looking out for each other!

OH - I love the comments, and I need to ask a few more questions, so I'll be answering them this morning. I didn't get the reference to the matches in the bathroom? Am I missing something? 

I got an email in the afternoon about one of my posts that said to call them because I might be going down the wrong path. Yikes!!! It concerned the vinyl we cut for the Terrifying Tower, which we're going to machine embroider in a couple of weeks. 

Here is the picture and the wording that scared several of my savvy friends. 

The heat transfer vinyl with cut shapes

When we want a shape, we simply peel it off the plastic topping and place it where we want it!

OK --- I agree 100% with them, that the way I worded that is NOT the correct way to use heat transfer vinyl. The shapes are half-cut, so they stay on the sticky, clear plastic topping. There's adhesive on the back, and the PROPER way to do this is to weed out the background, place the shape where you need it, use heat to adhere it to the fabric, and then remove the plastic. 

While I had never used heat transfer vinyl before, I knew enough from the Digital Cutter club. However, we did some testing the day we cut the vinyl to see if we could remove the shape (and the adhesive backing), and we could. Here's what happened in our experiment. 

We took a scrap of HTV (heat transfer vinyl) and cut it at a full cut. You can see that the circle was cut entirely out of the rectangle. While this isn't entirely incorrect, it makes it difficult to remove the plastic coating. I have a story to tell you about that plastic coating another day! Since we are using these shapes for machine embroidery, I would stitch a placement line, then fuse the circle inside the placement lines, and then peel the clear plastic coating away. That could damage the edges when removing the plastic. 

Our experiment with HTV

The other option is a half-cut, which is the second sample. That was easy. Place your vinyl with the clear plastic side down on the mat, so when you do the half cut, you are cutting through the adhesive and the vinyl, but NOT the transparent plastic coating. 

Then, instead of weeding out the background, as is the most preferred way, I removed the shape from the clear plastic. And it worked. There could be an issue with stretching, but the piece of vinyl we had did NOT distort due to its thickness and the adhesive on the back. BUT not all vinyls are created equal, so thereis a risk of stretching if you do it the way I described. 

I could remove the shape from the clear coating with no stretching

You can see the clear plastic coating after removing the shape

OH -- and we fused a sample just to ensure that there was, in fact, fusible on the back of the vinyl, and there was. 

Testing the fusible

After the conversation, I will rethink the process slightly. Instead of pulling the shape off the plastic and then ironing (using a press cloth, as I've done with other HTV vinyls in the past), I'm going to rough-cut around each shape, which will be a challenge in some instances because the shapes are close together, but we have room. Then, weed out the background to reveal the shape. Stitch out the placement line, place the vinyl piece on the fabric within the placement lines, press it well, and THEN pull the plastic off. 

My two circles - neither is distorted

PHEW — thanks to my eagle-eyed digital cutter friends with more experience than us for catching that. We probably would have run into difficulty and then had to rethink the plan. Now it's already rethought! And we're ready to roll! 

In our defence, we did samples! And our circles were NOT distorted when we pulled it off the plastic!

Hopefully, I got all that down correctly, and when we are ready to stitch, it will be totally uneventful. 

But we are good to go, and I can't wait until the next play date! 

Here is the situation outside the window to the stash room. The "erosion" from the water was pretty deep. It rained and rained, and water just tumbled off the roof straight onto the ground. But all was nice and dry that I could see, so the weeping tiles and good basement foundation are working! 

Erosion from the water falling off the roof

Here's Murphy in her relaxed rabbit stalking mode. There used to be an opening to the underside of the deck right underneath her. I think the rabbit can still get in, but she can't. And I think the rabbit knows that and is taunting her. So Murphy stays there to ensure the rabbit can't leave. Although if the rabbit is clever, it will go to the opposite side of the deck and out under the fence. 

MOM -- there is a rabbit under the deck!

No picture of Miss Lexi this morning, but as I was working at the computer early this morning, I heard one mournful, long howl coming from her. What the heck was she dreaming about? 

The weather was rather challenging yesterday. As I was looking out the front window and petting Murphy, our neighbor walked by with his dog. Oh great --- make me feel guilty that I didn't go out in the afternoon for a walk! And Murphy was jealous that Crosby got to go for a walk, and she didn't! Well, she had already been out in the morning, when the weather was windy, but warm and with zero ice on the sidewalks! 

And while it was a crazy day with lots of wind and bits of snow, it did try to clear up a couple of times. This was the sky as the sun set! 

Sunset on a stormy day

More projects were finished, and more writing was done. I'm almost finished, and it's going to be heads down today!

I recently got a request for a pattern I wrote a while back, so now the hunt is on to find all the parts. That means tackling the desk: I found some of the parts in digital form, and the rest is in paper format, but where? 

I need to tackle this mess

I found a 300-piece Dowdle puzzle on the desk. Why? I've no idea, but after I complete the 500- piece, I'll tackle this one - it will be super easy! And that's one more thing off the desk. 

A "found" 300-piece Dowdle puzzle

Then I grabbed a small bunch of loose papers to go through. Oh my—artwork from a drawing class years ago. I put it all in the recycling bin. If I want to take another class or draw a face, I'm sure I can find all that online or in a book. 

Artwork found on the desk

I also found some of the neat things I used to have hanging in my work office when I worked outside the house. I LOVE this saying, and I kept it and placed it on my visual goal rack. 

Neat quote

Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone felt this way? How relaxed we all would be. 

When I tackle that paper, I NEED to deal with every paper and not put it back on the desk. That is going to be super hard! I must continue to ask myself the question -- will you ever use/need this again? If yes, then it needs to be filed. If NO, then it needs to be recycled. ACK!!!!! But it's going to be the only way to get through that mess, and I NEED to make that happen because I need to find those documents. If I don't find the documents, guess what? I get to recreate them, and I don't want to. I know they are there, as I remember cleaning up the folder when I finished my version of the quilt. Wish me luck!!!

A small handful every day. Perhaps I should go through the filing cabinet first and empty out all the remaining crap? OH ---I'm so confused! BUT -- I will devise a plan and focus. I want this done - I'm so close to having a clear space to work in! 

OK -- just grabbed a couple more pieces and dealt with them. 

And on that happy note - it's going to be a busy day. I cannot procrastinate any longer. I now have promises to people, and I need to keep them, as I wish them to keep theirs to me! 

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!