Time for a Late Spring Break ...

Lady Bug Note Generators

Free Software I Use To Create My Designs & Patterns -- Part 2

To edit the pages of a pattern I create to add my copyright, titles and other verbiage in the font I like, I need to convert original pdf files printed from my creation software to a graphics format from "pdf". I have used a variety of free programs from pdf995. All are very good, but include ads that pop up and, sometimes when their servers are busy, the ads take forever and slow me down.

Irfanview takes care of this perfectly! It is another free graphics software that has a lot of ability, most of which I have not taken the time to discover. There are lots of articles on the web on how to use this freeware. One day I will take the time to see what else it can do for me. Right now, I use it to save my "pdf" files printed from my pattern creation software as "tif" files to open in my old graphics program, PaintShopPro 5 (I would provide a link but this program was purchased by Corel years ago and is no longer available). I've had this piece of software for years and paid for it. I learned to use it when I was creating my genealogy website to create the backgrounds, buttons, banners and other graphics I used there. If you're like me at all, it is difficult sometimes to take the learning curve time necessary to become expert at something new when that something old is working well .

To convert a "pdf" file to a "tif" file in Irfanview is easy. Select "File", "Save As" and the file type. There are several different settings to select from but if the end goal is to have a individual "tif" file to edit from each page of the "pdf" file, none of them need to be changed. The resulting "tif" file will appear as one file but when opened in your graphics program will become separate graphics for each page that was originally in the "pdf" file.



When I create quilt and quilt block patterns that I have freehand drawn, there are sometimes some wild sewing lines created by the algorhythm of the software I use. Using Irfanview to create "tif" files and then opening them in my graphics file allows me to clean these up and redraw appropriate lines instead, as well as add the aforementioned copyright text and update fonts.


I hope these articles give you some ideas to help you design your own patterns or for other uses in your daily work and play. Remember, my patterns, as well as custom orders, are always available at my Etsy shop, DPeaGreenDesigns.

Free Software I Use To Create My Designs & Patterns -- Part 1

I have purchased the software I use to actually create my counted cross-stitch and quilt patterns and translate for my Chinese Symbol/Kanji patterns. However, to clean up the design and to create and edit the patterns to a final excellent product, I use several free software programs. During the next week or so (or until I share all of them), I will be blogging this subject.

If you are like me and either new to or thinking of starting an online business creating items which can be delivered by email, I hope this information is helpful to you. There are so many freeware programs out there, it is sometimes overwhelming to choose. However, if like me, you don't have hundreds to thousands of dollars to spend on software, these programs may be exactly what will help you move to the next step in your goals.

Even though my translation software creates good quality symbols, the resulting graphic is raster and I can create a cleaner pattern from the start using a vector graphic. To read more about raster vs. vector graphics, Wikipedia has an excellent article.

Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and CorelDraw do this but cost hundreds of dollars. Vector Magic used to be free but is no longer and if you create lots of design graphics, can also cost in the hundreds of dollars. I found that Inkscape does a more than adequate job of vectorizing a raster image.

Of course, a poor quality image is not going to give a good result no matter what software is used, but Inkscape also has many of the options available in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to trace and add layers to correct a poor quality graphic to better quality or to redraw it from scratch. One can save graphics in SVG format to edit or create different sizes later and also export to "raster" image formats.

The downside to this software is that if you have never used a professional graphics program, learning to use Inkscape can be challenging. There is no one "simple" manual available and a lot of what is written for the user from the site is more understandable by an experienced user or "techie". There are, however, lots of mini-tutorials available free on the web to learn how to create different graphics and text options which will teach one how to use the program. Google is our friend!

NEWS FLASH!!: There are two new "how to" Inkscape books available for pre-order from Amazon.com: The Book of Inkscape by Dmitry Kirsanov was published May 28, 2009, and Beginning Inkscape by Donna Benjamin, is scheduled to be published November 1, 2009.

I have not been able to view any of the contents of either book though I will be ordering The Book of Inkscape next payday. I will write a review once I do receive the book and have an opportunity to see if it is easy for a novice designer to decipher. If you are a book author and have written a help book for Inkscape, please email me so I can share this with others. The more options available to users, the better!

Tomorrow I will share details about another graphics freeware program I use to create my finished patterns.

Have a blessed Sunday!

Sunbonnet Sam -- From the Past to the Present

I shared the news recently about my first grandchild. Yesterday I shared an ultrasound photo of his perfect feet.

Today I share the quilt I am finishing for him. My maternal grandmother, Lucy Moore, began this quilt sometime in the 1950s when my mother was pregnant with one of us. Alas, we all turned out to be girls so my mother took the blocks made by my grandmother and pieced them together but never finished it.

She made a quilt from clothing of my childhood for my son. She had saved some of my dresses and coats I had outgrown and put them in a hope chest. When I got pregnant, she took her favorites I had worn as a baby and toddler and created a crazy quilt for my son. He still has that little quilt.

She gave me this quilt over a decade ago to finish one day and I put it away. I had almost forgotten about it until my son and daughter-in-law shared their wonderful news a few months ago.

I am working on some quilting templates for the squares and will machine quilt all but one square which I've asked the new mommy to complete. Then I will bind it and add a custom label which I'm designing which will document the four generations of loving hands which created this "masterpiece". I will share a photo of the finished quilt and label once it is completed.


Have a terrific Thursday! Off to work on my latest quilt block designs of a butterfly and a dragonfly :) and then off to work I go...

New Life

Happy Wednesday! I hope your week is going well. I've mentioned it before but just in passing -- I'm going to be a first-time grandma in the Fall. A couple of weeks ago, my son and daughter-in-law found out they are having a healthy baby boy. It is exciting to watch their lives change bit by bit each day as the reality of becoming parents gets closer and closer.

The pictures from the ultrasound came out so well. It is sometimes hard to believe how far technology has come since I was pregnant. Amazing! My grandson in the making is a mover and shaker and Momma has already felt the hiccups.

The photo above is an ultrasound picture of grandbaby's feet :)

Okay, off to conquer another day...