Adventures in Beekeeping: Successful hive installation
My last two orders of package honeybees arrived this morning and everything went smoothly. No time to post the few pictures that my daughter took but perhaps I’ll get a chance within the next few days.
Throughout the day, I popped by to check on them and I must say that they seem to be settling into their home quite nicely. This afternoon, we had rain showers for a few hours which made most of the honeybees go inside their new home. There were a few stragglers that refused to go inside though. It wasn’t a hard rain. After the rain had stopped, I noticed some of the honeybees doing widening circles as they oriented themselves to their new location and later some ventured out to find nectar sources. 🙂
Water filtration system: Big Berkey update
I’m really enjoying the addition of the Big Berkey in our home. It makes the simple act of drinking water so much easier. Earlier I was using a tiny filtered pitcher and the occasional bottled water, but now I just fill up at the Big Berkey.
Our Big Berkey Filtration System is placed on the center island in our kitchen and I must say it is receiving a lot of attention from my daughter and myself. Not only do I use the water to drink, I also use it during cooking. The Big Berkey holds 2.5 gallons of water. I fill it three times daily and while I could have purchased a larger Berkey (even though the Big Berkey is suitable for four people) this is the most convenient. Standing at about 19″ tall, it’s a nice size and I didn’t want something even taller crowding our counter space.
Initial impression
The water filtered through the Big Berkey tastes great. Installed correctly, I’m not experiencing any weird taste in the water. Initially, I did not install it correctly and the water tasted like tap water. Why was this happening? The rubber washers had not been installed on the black filters and so tap water was dripping into the filtered water area. That was easily remedied by installed the washers onto the black filters. Problem solved! Now our water has no after taste and none of that chemically taste that I could always detect in tap water. Also, the water didn’t have the “plastic” taste that I could spot in bottled water. Regardless of the brand, if the water is in a plastic bottles I could taste the plastic.
Loving the Big Berkey!
It’s safe to say that I’m loving the Big Berkey, the initial cost might make some pause. I spent $286 for the unit that also has cylinders to remove fluoride. But, if you purchase bottled water, it won’t be long before the Big Berkey pays for itself. Before the Berkey, I only carried freshly made juices to work and that was due to the fact that I hated how bottled water tasted, but thanks to the Big Berkey I’m now bringing water to work in my stainless steel water bottles.
Machine Embroidery with Embird: Merged design stitch out; second creation in Embird
This is the results of the stitch out that I did with my brand-new Embird software.
Let me say upfront that I ONLY merged different bits of other embroidery designs (created by other designers) to come up with my own. I want to get a feel for machine embroidery from already created designs before I put the time into turning my own drawings into “embroidered masterpieces.”
What’s wrong with this embroidered design?
I purposely choose the embroidered files to create my own recreated merged design because of some of the comments that were made about the separate embroidered designs. They weren’t all positive.
My first impression, while watching this was being machine embroidered was…
- The people who created the original embroidered designs were (hopefully) still in the learning stage. I would not be pleased to pay for something like this with the errors I’m seeing.
- Perhaps they used a auto-stitch feature (some embroidery programs have that) in the embroidery program that they have. That could have explained some of the spotty stitching.
Why do I say that? Look at the above picture. There are several gaps. Those gaps should have been manually filled with embroidered stitches. Also, if you look there is a red sewn line running from the bottom lip up to the upper lip. That running stitch should have been hidden under the main stitching and connected to the upper lip at the side so it would not be noticeable. I didn’t even talk about the eyes, those errors might not be as noticeable, but those have issues also.
The only reason I know what is wrong with this merged embroidered design is because I’ve stitched out machine embroidery designs that were “perfect.” I purposely worked with already completed designs, because I wanted an understanding on how machine embroidery works, so I’ve mainly used created designs for the past several months. If you’re paying attention while the machine is embroidering, it’s easy to spot when something is done incorrectly.
I did clean up what I could by snipping away the threads that really stood out (with my embroidery scissors) but it still needs a lot of work. It could be fixed if repaired by hand embroidery, but I’m not doing that. I tend to keep “before projects” just so I can look back to see how I improved.
Now that this embroidery file is merged, it will be a great canvas to play around with as I apply some of the techniques I’ve learned with my machine embroidery program (Embird). The next step is to clean up this merged embroidery file and turn it into an embroidered pattern that will stitch out nicely. No, you won’t see an update tomorrow. There is still a lot to learn (after all) but I’m looking forward to stitching this out again and seeing how it’s improved.
Of course, now I’m just eager to learn as much as possible so I can start turning some of my sketches (and my talented daughters) into embroidered works of art.
And I can’t forget my desire to turn a WoW character into an embroidered creation! I’m looking at you Aggra! Female orcs are my favorite in-game character. Although I haven’t played World of Warcraft in a while, the game still has a lot of great memories and I do keep in contact with a few folks through email and phone. I’m sure I’ll be touring that virtual world with some of my toons, someday…
Machine Embroidery with Embird: Merging designs
A few moments ago, I finished creating my second merged embroidery file using my machine embroidery software program – Embird.
I cut parts from a few embroidery files, added them together, merged and removed some things that I didn’t want on the eyes. Speaking of eyes, there was actually only one eye. I just made a mirror image to make the second eye. I saved everything into one machine embroidery file. For my first time, I don’t think I did too badly and what’s better is that I was able to create my own machine embroidered ‘face’. Well… the proof lies in the sewing an embroidered file. After all, a embroidered picture can look really nice, but that gives you no clue on how it will stitch out, unless they take an actual photo of the completed design (untouched).
Later today, I’ll hoop it and stitch it out with my Brother Designio Series DZ820E embroidery machine.
Embroidery Software: May I have a do-over?
It’s not too often that I wish I’d purchased something different. I spend too much time researching to make sure that I get something that I enjoy. But if I had to do it over again, I would not have purchased SewWhatPro.
It’s not that it’s a bad machine embroidery program. It actually does get the job done, but in it’s current state, I really dislike the user interface and so I’ve found myself avoiding using it if possible. However, it’s a low cost machine embroidery program at only $65 so if you don’t want to spend a lot of money on embroidery software this would be an excellent purchase and the customer service is excellent. The creator is very active on the SewWhatPro forum and has even called people to walk them through areas they had trouble with. I’ll definitely hold onto this program and hopefully, within a few years it’ll have a user interface that I enjoy more.
I had heard a lot about Embird, at $164, it’s most likely the next step (for machine embroidery programs cost wise). I broke down and purchased the program. They have a 30 day free trial that you can use, but having seen numerous tutorials and interacting on Embird forums, I felt confident enough to make the purchase. Machine embroidery programs can easily cost a few thousand dollars, so based on all of its capabilities, purchasing Embird is a great deal!
After installing Embird, I started working with embroidery files. Their user interface, is everything I expected it to be, and a bit more. There’s so much to discover with this program that right now I’m just playing in the shallow end of the Embird pool but I’m loving the experience. Even though machine embroidery software has a steep learning curve, I’m not feeling overwhelmed at all and am actually looking forward to using this software a lot.
Last evening, I successfully merged two different embroidery files! A picture would have been nice, right? I’ll get around to posting one soon. I plan to stitch that design out this weekend. Later today, I’ll be merging a few more designs to make a one of a kind embroidered masterpiece for my daughters new lunch bag.
Embird: How to Merge Designs
Embroidery Adventures: Frozen
The Lutheran youth group, that my daughter is in, will be showing the movie Frozen. Neither one of us has seen the movie so I know she’s really looking forward to seeing it with her friends.
Of course that got me thinking about designing an machine embroidering a Frozen themed tee shirt for her.
Truth be told, I’d been thinking about creating something from Frozen ever since I saw the pictures from the movie. However, I held off, since was unsure who to make it for? My daughter is fine with me embroidering a ‘Frozen themed’ shirt with my Brother Designio DZ820E as long as it does not look too “childish”.
I’ve told my daughter to pick out a character she wanted me to embroider and while I was sure she’d choose Olaf (he’s so adorable) but
she wants me to embroider one (or both) of the sisters.
Once my Metro embroidery thread arrives, I’ll hoop up the project and start machine embroidering with my Brother Designio DZ820E.