Stencil Terminology

Stencil technique in visual art is referred to as pochoir, e.g. Banksy.  When a paper-cut, stencil-like image is the artwork itself, it's known as scherenschnitte (scizzor-cut).  It's kirigami (paper-cut) when the cutwork is symmetrical, as in a paper snowflake. (Although I've seen asymmetrical kirigami.) Cutwork is usually used for the effect on fabrics, I've seen the term applied to jewelry also.  Openwork is a term I've seen used for jewelry and crochet. I have been using cutwork mesh up to this point for my work.  But the 3D animation folks are also using mesh. To be honest, right now I don't know what I should call my work.

When I design a cutwork mesh the challenge is to make the bridges the right size.  If the mesh is to do a job like hold a bar of soap, it has to have robust enough bridges, while still letting in lots of air so that the soap can dry out well.  If I design at one scale and then try to shrink the design, the bridges shrink, too, so I have to keep aware of what's happening. I make a test cut and see which bridges are problematic, then adjust the elements accordingly in Illustrator to make bigger bridges, or smaller holes. 2 mm or about 1/16" is about as small as I want a bridge to be.

I don't just design on Adobe Illustrator, sometimes I use TouchDraw on the iPad to design meshes. With TouchDraw, I mail the drawing file as a pdf which I can email to my main computer put it on a thumb drive and take it via sneakernet to my other PC which has Illustrator on it.  From Illustrator I export an SVG file which is the file format for Sure Cuts A Lot.  Sometimes I sing the Madelina Catelina song and juggle a few oranges while I'm at it.

Vinylschnitte Notebook

Finally got one of these notebooks listed.  A year or so ago I had a lot of ideas for notebooks.  The hanging chads issue is largely solved by using the multi-cut feature on the Cricut Expressions. Rounding the corners makes for an attractive edge without binding.  Cutwork is trending right now. Therefore, I hope these get some interest.

With this notebook the red insert is reversible to a teal color for a more subtle color combination. Or the insert could be left out entirely for a white background. Three colorways in one notebook!

I had been journalling on my iPad, but there's something about having a physical notebook to thumb through. I enjoyed looking at past sketches for cartoons, things I haven't done yet, as well as all that journalling. I think I'll start using a physical notebook again. After all, one never knows when the cloud will go "poof," and there goes all your entries.


Did you know that the German word for paper cutting is Scherenschnitte? I guess what I'm doing is Vinylschnitte.  

Cutwork Notebooks

These cutwork notebook covers work like jackets for the coil notebook inside. When the notebook is filled up, it can be swapped out for another notebook.

The other feature of these notebooks is that you can change the color of the insert by flipping it around to the white side. Two looks for one!

I was able to use some of the same mesh files that I have designed for the soap bags. It is nice when files can be reused, all that hard work can go towards another purpose.

They are sewn on an industrial walking foot machine, and I make sure that the top thread is on the outside for the nicest effect. I'm looking forward to the reaction these will get when I show them at this weekend's craft show.

The flyer didn't have the address, it is 1919 79 Ave SE Calgary, in Ogden. At this show I will have a ton of soap bags, wallets and notebooks that aren't currently listed on either of my online shops.

Brothers Bloom Notebook Cover

First I covered the page of the underlying coil notebook with white adhesive vinyl decal. I put the same cutwork design on the inside and outside. But I think that it will work better with no cutwork on the inside.

Rounded corners make it nice so that I don't have to add seam binding.

I saw a window with a coil design in the Brothers Bloom movie, that's where the design takes its inspiration.

I like these, they go up pretty fast and they look very nice. Does anyone use paper notebooks anymore?

Inspiration for cut-work patterns

I went to the library today and sketched some patterns which might work for the cut work patterns I use on my soap totes. (Soap totes are like a hanging soap dish). These were from a book called "1000 Patterns," by Drusilla Cole. I drew them using Sketchbook Pro on the iPad.

Cutout map

I made a Cutout map of downtown Calgary using TouchDraw on the Ipad. Plus a lot more steps as well. The reason for many blocks not getting cut out was that I was experimenting with the pressure on the Cricut Expressions during the cutting session. It seemed to need maximum pressure on this particular piece of vinyl. The challenge was with the high pressure the piece was looking like it was going to shift off of the cutting mat.

Cutout/cutwork maps seem to be a trend, here's one in paper of Madrid. Mine has nowhere near the accuracy of Karen O'Leary's work however; I just wanted to see how it would look. Also the underlying map I was using did not have a lot of detail. The advantage of making an svg file is that I can make many copies. Each one will be unique due to the underlying colors of the vinyl.