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3. Circular fashion: You turn me right round baby

It is hard to believe it is already the third week!

Wowla!

This I made with the laser cutter. It is a strap cut out from green leather. It is a series of interlocking figure 8s. It took ages!!

My youngest likes to say walla! He means voila, but here it is!! the final results!

Leather Strap

More to come!!

Obstacles

"At the end of the day we can do much more than we think we can." Frida K

When I first wanted to take Fabricademy my husband didn't want me to.

So he stole my laptop.

A friend lent me a laptop so I could still take the class so my husband changed the wifi password in the house so I couldn't log on to our home internet. Then he said he'd watch the kids during the lectures but would show up late or not at all. So I got a babysitter to watch the kids. Then he stole my wallet so I couldn't pay her or buy anything. When I tried to leave the house to go watch lectures in a cafe with wifi he took the car keys so I walked several miles into town. What a difference support and love make when you are trying to do something. This year I didn't have any of the machines I needed and am locked out of my fully equipped lab but I am luckily divorced and with my mom who made me breakfat so I can attend my lectures and helps me with my kids and finds supplies I need and does everything to make my life easier. Don't give up! Maybe this is a hard year. Maybe this is a hard decade. But it will pass and get better. Embrace the obstacles. They will always be there. Your ways around them make for interesting stories.

Ideas and Inspiration

  1. Fall sweater coat
  2. Purse
  3. Corset
  4. Underwear
  5. Shelter made of interlocking lattices
  6. Halloween inspired houses, furniture, capes and decor
  7. Puppets and finger puppets
  8. Tree shaped tesselating interlocking shape
  9. Fall shawl made of interlocking leaves that
  10. Winter shawl made of interlocking snowflakes
  11. Fish or scale shaped pattern that makes a bathing suit top
  12. reconfigurable cast or shoulder sling

Prototyping with Paper

I love Halloween so I thought it would be fun to make some Halloween inspired patterns.

I prototyped Halloween related shapes on paper and made a skull and bones.

Paper Prototype Paper Skeleton Assembled Skull and Bones

Import into Inkscape

I drew my images by hand imported them into inskscape

add picture

I imported this and it crashed my computer trying to convert to bitmap.

So I drew just the skull and bones.

add image here

I then traced the image as a bitmap in inkscape

add screenshot image here

Trimming in Rhino

I imported the .svg file into Rhino to scale it and arrange it in an array and found there were outlines around the pen drawing I did. So I spent a very long time getting used to the trim feature in Rhino. Amd slightly felt like poking my eyes out in the process.

Trimming in Rhino

Cricut Tools

Add table with all of the different tools

Cutting with Cricut

I imported the skull image into the cricut design space and spent awhile trying to find the best assembly that wasted the least amount of material. Having the skulls arranged next to each other with the bones on the heads is the best assortment. But when I tried to make the project it rearranged all of my hard work. In the future I'd create the best configuration in corel draw inkscape or Rhino instead of doing it in cricut design space.

Cricut skull arrangement

Cutting with Cricut

Cutting Felt and Foam

I looked up videos for cutting fabric and felt with the cricut and they suggested using the Rotary Blade.

Assembly

Coming Soon!

Lessons Learned

  1. Document early
  2. Document often
  3. Making takes time
  4. Give yourself more time than you think you need.
  5. If you're going to draw your image use as fine a tip pen as possible and only draw one shape at a time to import and manipulate
  6. Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.
  7. Remember to tape down your stock before cutting or lasering. I forgot this and thought a thinner material would be fine and I was wrong.

Next Steps

Coming Soon! add info and files for laser strap as well as light fixture

Upload to circular open source fashion

tutorial coming soon

Laser Cutter Tutorial

Coming Soon!

Files

Coming Soon!

Last update: October 13, 2020