Karen at Silver Seams

Karen at Silver Seams

@silverseams.bsky.social

I use embroidery machines to do "impossible" 3d things, with more detail and precision than is otherwise practical. https://silverseams.com/ Keeper of the Machine Embroiderers & Plushie Maker feeds (ping me to be added!)

695 Followers 99 Following 1,919 Posts Joined Nov 2023
2 days ago
Another preview of designs, this time Sesame Street characters.

It's going to be a race to see whether my knee gets better before I can organize outside testers (so far, the knee is winning).

silverseams.com/contact.html if you're interested!

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2 days ago

Do rubies also? I know that would be less weird but I remember thinking it was neat that my sister's and my birthstones were the same basic rock.

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2 days ago
Four different pocket monster rounds, in a variety of formats (including snap tabs and bracelet links).

Now I'm recruiting testers (since I'm not quite back to the machine and my in-house tester is off visiting their SO).

You'll need to be able to make appliques, minky charms, felt or vinyl plaques, and snap tabs and take pictures at least as well as I do (this is not a high bar, sadly).

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2 days ago

Forgot to post an update but: this is going so much better than the first one! This time I have one knee that actually works and that makes a huge difference. Last time I couldn't stand up without both hands on a walker, this time I can balance on a good leg and leave my hands free.

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6 days ago

Had that a few years back (probably coming up on it again in fact) and I got the Special Philly-Area Version of the instructions, which had "WATER ICE, EXCEPT RED" penciled in on the oft-copied original, which was hilarious to me as a new-to-the-area.

(it's what everywhere else calls "Italian Ice")

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6 days ago

Well, here we go again.

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1 week ago

(Residential zoning in Wichita was funny; one reading of it could be that you can't park ANY truck on a residential street, including our little bitty Toyota... which, EVERYONE in Wichita has a pickup, you gotta park them in the street sometimes!)

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1 week ago

Nice! We had a neighbor who was an independent trucker and just parked on our street. It actually wasn't an issue until it was (I think a tree came down while he was away and the utility trucks couldn't get into the alley to fix it?) City made him move after that.

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2 weeks ago

I found a use for some of the surplus! πŸ‘οΈ

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3 weeks ago
A diagram of how to assemble a necklace but they've used an isolated image of a hand showing a small capped tube, with a water droplet in midair. E6000 will ooze but not drip, and again the cap is on!

If my E6000 drips like that, and with the cap on, I'm asking for a refund Fire Mountain.

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3 weeks ago

The neat thing about this is that this is two of these plus a big clear tackle box and some other bits, condensed down to this. Gonna print at least a couple more trays for the last types, and probably another lid or two so I can break up the stack (it's heavy!)

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3 weeks ago

(and yes, I keep looking at your stuff and going "I wish I wore jewelry," but I am scruffy-T-shirt-and-jeans all day every day)

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3 weeks ago

And I could 3d print claws (and horns) and paint them with colorshift and all, but there's just something satisfying about glass. Even though unlike jewelry, the eventual owner isn't really gonna touch it much.

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3 weeks ago

When they got discontinued I grabbed up as many as I could, though the single-sided ones (I forget the name; AB on one side and opaque on the other) I could part with because I like my dragons to be symmetrical. I thought I could live with the half-and-half but I cannot.

Almost out of black though.

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3 weeks ago

Anyway uh @peculiarityshop.bsky.social , @toadcialism.bsky.social , if you ever run short of a color of Gemduos or Diamonduos, feel free to shop my collection, I will never live long enough to use these at two eyes per dragon. πŸ˜…

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3 weeks ago
Eight trays full of glass beads and cabochon eyes for art doll dragon making.

Approaching "open a bead store" levels of Czech glass. 😬

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3 weeks ago
A fifteen compartment tray with mostly tiny (5mm) glass "talon" beads. Two colors are full to the top.

Printed a deeper one but realized I only need it for two colors, which would take up three compartments if I put them all in, so I'll print another shallow one for the rest and a bigger-compartment one for the white. I'm about two thirds through the tackle boxes, and this is SO compact now.

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3 weeks ago
Another tray of glass and plastic eye cabochons. Still more eye cabochons, from 16mm down to I think 6mm.

Send help.

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3 weeks ago
Two more organizer trays filled with eye beads, claw beads, and gotten beads for dragon making.

Filled that one, working on more.

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3 weeks ago
A bead organizer with 7-10 grams of beads (sometimes upwards of 50, or 25 dragons) in each of about forty colors).

At two beads per dragon I am not going to live long enough to use up all these beads. 😬

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1 month ago
Machine-embroidered sentiment: "that moral arc's not gonna bend itself."

Wish this wasn't more apt than it was when I made it a few years ago.

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1 month ago

Update to the update: Ko-Fi gave me basically the same response: "oh but we gotta be where the community is."

Think I'm gonna move to self-hosting.

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1 month ago

Update! Patreon says they have to be on X to give people quick support. I told them that didn't fly, because they're not on Bluesky as well. I pointed out that @ko-fi.com was, though I didn't let on that Ko-Fi ignores replies here.

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1 month ago

Update! Patreon says they have to be on X to give people quick support. I told them that didn't fly, because they're not on Bluesky as well. I pointed out that @ko-fi.com was, though I didn't let on that Ko-Fi ignores replies here.

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1 month ago

(I am going to have to open the machine up and find or replace that felt gasket, but that's Bonus Kid's 400e and it's not on a stand right now anyway)

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1 month ago

# machines cleaned/oiled: 2
# screws dropped into the bowels of the machine: 1 (Janome owners know the one!)
# screws dropped on the floor: 1 (five or six times though)
# felt gaskets missing(!): 1
# screws missing/left over on completion: 0
# machines dropped while putting back in place: 0 (barely)

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2 months ago

You just gotta pop over to my house, I have a little one for the plastic snaps and an interchangeable one (though not the *big* big one) for everything else.

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2 months ago
Embroidery software preview of an "ice scraper" design.

Been taking a little post-holiday break from design testing but I guess it's time to get back to the embroidery machines.

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2 months ago

Very much hoping the answers are going to be "oh, we just haven't removed the link off the front page" but we'll see.

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2 months ago

Opened a ticket with Patreon; going to give the first two a chance to respond here first.

Not quite sure how to contact Michael's; they have a general 800 number but (1) I hate phones and (2) I sort of doubt the phone tree/firstline support has that in the script.

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