Everyone Needs A Bobert

Bobert is the 3D printer's name. He's fabulous. He enjoys nomming on various colors of pla and making cool widgets. I strongly believe that everyone needs a 3D printer in their life. The shear amount of things you can make is overwhelming. Besides the things I make to sell like buckets, stirrups, and stands you can make:

An army of Calicats

Or folding tables.

Wait... No... That's not in scale.... Is it supposed to be a bench? Gonna have to resize that.

But even better is a nice way to store all of that embroidery floss that always tangles when you look at it!

Ahhh. Much Better

Pet Peeves

This has been a roller coaster week, I've gotten positive feedback and negative feedback. I'm fully aware that these come with the territory of selling things online. But I'd like to share them in case it helps anyone else struggling with being a maker or online selling.

My positive feedback was nice. One of my repeat customers was super excited about my pitch fork design and that is leading me to launch operation barn tools to make some rakes and brooms and shovels oh my.
I have also garnered a ton of likes and even possibly a sale of my stirrups from a facebook post I posted. Also good.

And then I got slammed a little. I got a customer asking if I could sell my saddle without the bridle, okay fine. I dropped the price on the saddle a bit and put the bridle up separately. It never occurred to me that folks wouldn't want the whole set. Then I ran into my sale picture on a facebook performance show group. Asking if the saddle was LSQ. I do advertise it as such. They commented that it was plain for a western saddle. I'll agree with that. I'm really new at tooling and on saddle #8 I didn't want to be too ambitious. It's also for sale at around $50, what do you expect? What bothered me is that it was done behind my back without crediting the artist at all.

Which gets me to the main point of this post. Always credit the artist. Always credit the person who did the art/design. I've noticed some free creative commons 3D print designs from thingiverse floating around the hobby. The rules for creative commons are that you must cite the maker/ where the design came from. Some people do and I've seen some people who don't. Don't be that person who takes credit even implicitly for another person's work.

Here at HandcraftedByKari, I do a lot of my CAD. Just designing a bucket took upwards of 10 hours and 4 prototypes before I even liked my design. Give the person on thingiverse credit for all the time and effort they put into making that file. *End rant*

Bucket Update. I'm too fancy for my CAD

I started with tinkercad. There is nothing wrong with tinkercad. (Even if my mechanical engineer boyfriend snickered about it a bit.) It was a good introduction but it is super limiting, only able to use basic shapes and all. Now I use fusion 360, it was a bumpy start but I've got the hang of it and one of the most useful features is the fact that I can now make my cylinders tapered which means my buckets can stack inside each other, besides just being fancier. Now to add handles!

Tinkercad Bucket

Fusion 360 Bucket

New Projects Ahoy!

So, I've been very busy with some cad. Now Bobert and I are just working thorough prototypes for the new stuff for my shop. So far I've come up with 2, possibly 3 sets and a novel idea for some performance showing.

Set # 1: Tack Room Organization

2 Bridle Racks
2 wall mounted saddle racks
1 saddle stand
possibly some shelves?

Set # 2: New Horse Barn Pack (easy 1 stop everything you need for 1 horse in the stall)
1 Water bucket
1 small bucket
1 feed pan
1 rope haynet

Set # 3: Horse Barn Accessories
1 Pitch fork
1 Muck Bucket
1 Rake
1 feed scoop?
1 Feed Bin?

I'm also working on putting together a tack shop setup. Because I've made like half the stuff you find in those and honestly I'm working on making more.

DyeHard 1

Okay, I'm addicted to dyeing yarn. Way too addicted. Today I tried to make two different styles of ombre yarn. One way I liked, the other I am never doing again.

What I liked. Putting one end of the skein in the dye bath to saturate, then gradually putting more in so that it dilutes. Then new color and repeat with other side. It worked well and I can't wait to see how the yarn fairs on my hat test. Hat test is to see how the color pans out in a back and forth strip (the brim of my hat) and in rounds (as in the upper portion of the hat).

Yummy yarn bath!!!! Ignore the ball. The ball is bad. It is angry second way...

I dipped the other side in blue and wahlah.

The second way involved soaking the yarn, *making a yarn ball, dyeing the yarn ball until the dye penetrated it, removing the yarn from dye bath, rinsing, changing dye bath color, *unwinding ball into second reverse ball, putting back in dye bath, pulling out and *unraveling so it could dry. It tangled at every step you see an *, so I had to undo a yarn barf 3 times. It was not fun. And it made the yarn pill badly because it was played with when wet...

Adventures in yarn dyeing

While I mainly focus on model horse stuff, I do often spend time crocheting... to the point that my college roommate started affectionately calling me the Mad Hooker, kinda like the mad hatter? Anyway, I've been entranced with etsy's selection of hand dyed yarns but I could never convince myself to buy any because it is soooo expensive. I get it, handdyeing takes time and resources. I'm sure those folks are charging a perfectly fair price and everything but I also had a pinterest pin saved for dyeing yarn in a crock pot. Yarn dyeing is probably a lot more complex in big batches but I just wanted to try it a little bit. Boy was I shocked at how well it went.

I got a nice crockpot from goodwill and some *naked* superwash merino wool yarn...

I added some dyes I picked up off of amazon. Jacquard dyes are the bomb but they are more expensive on amazon than at knitpicks. Now you know.

And bada bing bada boom that yarn turned out fantastic!!!!

Sooooooo pretty I just had to make something with it right?

Messy bun hat? Definitely makes a nice messy bun hat!

 Just look at how cool the colors look! Such a vibrant variegation pattern. It reminds me of the camo yarn red heart sells but way deeper colors.

Pink Bridle Going live

Improvements:

• Stitch marks on browband and side pieces. 
• Custom shaped side pieces
• Everything is adjustable, even the chin strap (not usually the case, I'm afraid)
• Reins are re-attachable and adjustable
• Leather conchos around the sparkle conchos

Things that I need to work on:

• None of the buckles have tongues (oh my). Need to get myself the proper gauge of wire for this!
• Stitch marks are only in some places, not all...
• Uneven stitch marks! (Could be fixed if I purchase a pounce wheel or practiced a lot more)
• Colorful, yes. Intricate, not even close. Need to work on details!!!!
• Generalized bulk reduction.

Anyway it is now up on my etsy for $25. Edit: Sold! I've learned a lot and I think it looks pretty good. Here of some pics of it on Cupcake.