invizzpatsworld

New Beginnings

After having this tool for writing a blog for a couple of years now and not actually taking advantage of it, I thought it might be a good idea to make a fresh start of it. While my focus was on photography for quite a while, I found that I was a little reluctant to write about it as a work in progress. I always believed that I would post my latest captures but then never felt that they were good enough to post anywhere. Since I was primarily self-taught, I was my own worst critic and spent years comparing my work to professional photographers work and that of my father’s captures. They never really measured up in my view. While that doesn’t really advance my efforts, it is what it is.

Starting now, I think I would just like to write about what I am doing and share some of it here. Good or bad, I am in hot pursuit of numerous crafts, including photography, and I expect to share some of that work in the coming pages.

I recently began a new craft known to scrapbookers and other crafters alike and that is using a computer driven die cutter. My machine is the Cricut Maker 3. This is a high performance, table top cutting machine that can cut over 300 materials including thin pieces of wood, mylar, paper, vinyl, cloth, foam and numerous other materials that can be fashioned into all kinds of things as well as being applied to many surfaces. It really provides me an opportunity to play with design in new ways and “borrow” ideas from crafters all over the world. Just learning how to operate the machine and how to make use of the objects I’ve cut has been a real adventure. So far, I’ve primarily been making embellishments for tote bags and tee shirts.

If I can figure out how to insert a couple of photos, I’ll post them. Here goes:

photos of my latest t-shirt creations

So, the above photos are showing the most recent of the t-shirts I’ve made in the last week. The first two are from cut vinyl pieces, placed and then pressed on to the t-shirts with a heat press. the third is an image that was printed by way of the Cricut application and then cut out with the Cricut cutting machine. The printed material is a type of vinyl that can be run through an inkjet printer. It is then pressed on to the t-shirt with a heat press. The fourth photo shows my first successful attempt at sublimation. This is a little tricky because I absolutely needed to be working with a polyester t-shirt blank – not 100% cotton which is my favorite material to work with. I am using pre-inked sheets with patterned sublimation so placement of color is a little haphazard. This is cut out by the Cricut and then pressed on to the polyester t-shirt at a high temperature for a pretty long time compared to the vinyls. The result was better than I expected and I think I’ll be doing more of this once I find a supplier of polyester blanks that is good quality at a reasonable price.

My next challenge will be to sublimate on to objects such as coffee mugs and tumblers. Presses are sold to accomplish this with very little trouble but the presses are a little expensive. There may be a market for these items on our family owned business if I can come up with some good ideas for what people want on their mugs. I seriously doubt there’ll be a huge market for my standard, sarcastic and/or caustic phrases. Maybe, I’ll start with some nice florals or cute little hearts or butterflies.

So that’s what I’m up to right now. I’m going to try to keep up with this and maybe post some of my best and worst moments in what I am doing.

Reading Purist No More

One of the things I have enjoyed doing for most of my life is reading. Of course, I enjoy fiction but almost any other type of printed matter is engaging as well. From cereal boxes to soup can labels, from dictionaries to textbooks, from romance novels to science fiction, from self-help to biography, I love reading what other people have written. I love discovering what other people think. It’s fascinating how a writer can layout information, be it purely fiction or strictly fact, in a way that can either entertain or educate and in some cases do both at the same time. To a reader, writers are artists with words.

For a long time, I was a self-admitted binge reader. I easily read three or four books in a week and couldn’t wait for one or another of my favorite authors to release another masterpiece. I was never without a book close at hand and read even while watching television. I would describe reading as “seeing a movie that plays on inside my mind”. Reading consumed a lot of my time and attention.

As a complete reading purist, I printed out things that I really wanted to read when I found them on my computer. It was hard for me to trust something that I read on a screen since every bit of research that I did while going to school had been at the library. I consulted volume after volume of encyclopedias, reference books and periodicals. I had to see the source for myself in print. An electronic resource had to be verified and I wanted a hard copy. That was how it was done prior to the tech revolution.

When eBooks became a widely accepted way for people to get their reading fix, I believed it was a good idea. I could carry more books with me and have ready access to more information. But the idea of settling back with a nice Kindle edition of Gone with the Wind just never appealed to me. I’m still a little torn between paper and Kindle but I have relaxed my rigidity, especially when I decide that I just have to read a certain author’s new book at 2 a.m. It’s certainly convenient to just “buy with one click”.

Several years ago, a friend of mine told me that he had started reading audio books because he spent a lot of time on the road and it was a great way for him to pass the time. I thought this guy must have taken leave of his senses. How could he possibly enjoy a novel while he was driving? How could he keep from driving off the side of the road or slamming into a car stopped in front of him? Okay, I understand that young people multitask better than older people but still… I thought audio books were almost an affront to reading. At the time, I didn’t see the merit to audio books except for books for the blind.

Around this same time, I was spending a lot of time walking outside in a nearby park. I would listen to music as I walked along and really enjoyed just bopping along to the tunes. Then, I got interested in listening to a radio show most afternoons so I began listening to that instead of the music. Since listening to the spoken word didn’t slow down the pace that I hoped to maintain, I stopped using the music at all. The problem with walking several miles every day is that I felt somewhat isolated while I was walking. Listening to music helped to lessen that feeling but when I started hearing people talking on the radio program, it really improved my attitude.

About four years ago, the radio service that I use on my iPhone was offering a new “Premium” service for $7.99 per month. For that price, the listener would be receiving all of the standard stations that I was already listening to, plus several exclusive stations including most of the professional sports games (football, baseball, basketball). They also offered unlimited access to an extensive library of audiobooks. They then sweetened the deal by offering the first three months for free. Well, I gave this about an hour to sink in. $8 a month for major league sports, some cool radio stations AND a chance to see what an audiobook was like. And so it began…

As much as I once felt audio books were a bad idea, I was intrigued by the idea of being able to enjoy listening to a story while I was doing work with my hands or while I was walking. The first couple of audio books that I listened to were not very well read. They were Robert B. Parker’s Jesse Stone series and the reader of those two books made it a challenge to like. The third book by that author was read by someone who really knew how to address each character with his voice in a unique way that allowed the listener to envision the story in much the same way that they would when they read them in print. I was really impressed by that. As much as I thought that the audio book was a poor substitute for spending time quietly reading, I could see the merit in them for folks who are on the run and don’t have the luxury of idle time. I still think it’s a fool’s errand to try to listen to a fascinating mystery or suspenseful thriller while trying to navigate traffic. On the other hand, it might be pleasant to listen to a well produced audio book while driving endlessly over straightaway roads in the middle of nowhere. For myself, I really came to enjoy listening to audiobooks while walking and sometimes while I work on craft projects.

It really became apparent to me that I had crossed over to the dark side and fully embraced the audio books when the radio app that I was using announced very suddenly that it was ending the use of the audio book library in a few weeks time. Twitter was really buzzing over this since the announcement was done so discretely that it took most of the users by surprise when they found that they might not even get to finish a book that they were currently reading. I was surprised and disappointed but I felt that I had really gotten my money’s worth over the time that I had been a subscriber. I had read dozens of books and found ways of gaining advanced knowledge about the narrator before I would begin a book. All in all, it was a fabulous deal and I had come to value a new way of enjoying reading.

Now, I have come to embrace every manner of reading. I still enjoy turning actual pages and can’t imagine taking courses in college with all my textbooks on an iPad or computer. But, I enjoy eBooks especially when reading before going to sleep at night or when I’m sitting in the hairdressers since I can adjust the size of the font so that I can see the print without my glasses. I’ve never read an eBook at the beach but I think it’s easier to read an actual print book out in the sunlight. Maybe, the latest Kindle edition has improved the glare factor but then the device might get damaged by the sand or water. It might be even better to listen to an audio book at the beach but then I’d lose the relaxing sound of the ocean. The audio book is definitely the champion when it comes to motivating an avid reader to climb on the treadmill and go, go, go.

A New Tool or Toy?

I just received my new iPad Pro (3rd generation). I have a couple of older iPads and have enjoyed using them for many years. But, this iPad Pro is something that I have wanted for a very long time. I wanted the first generation, the second generation and so on. But for some reason, I never brought myself to pull the trigger and buy one. It became a joke in my family because I talked about wanting this device endlessly. I visited the Apple Store and looked at them all lined up. I even had the whole configuration that I wanted all worked out. Still, I just knew that the next iteration would be something really great. Finally, it was announced. The third generation of iPad Pro would be released in November 2018. The day they went on sale, I ordered my new tool/toy.

I got the keyboard folio last week. I think Apple was trying to tease me by sending it out almost a week before I would get the iPad itself. I was so excited about it that I decided to have a peek at it before I went to bed. I cut a gash in the palm of my left hand with the box cutter and ended up in the emergency room getting it “glued” closed. This was at 1 o’clock in the morning and nobody was happy about that. But, the keyboard folio is really nice.

Today, I was waiting for the UPS guy to show up. This was the day that I had anticipated for at least three years and I was very excited. He delivered both the iPad and the Apple Pencil, got my signature and was on his way. I was left holding the two little packages. Of course, my husband cautioned me not to slash my hand open again, as if I needed that reminder. I set about the delicate task of opening a new Apple device.

Anyone who has ever used an Apple device of any kind knows that the devices are well made and not flimsy or insubstantial. But they are so well packaged that removing them from their boxes makes me feel like I’m breaking into a bank. Considering what I had to pay for this thing, that’s not too far off the mark. Once I get the tightly fitted lid off the perfectly made box, I carefully try to extract the new device without doing anything to damage it. There all kinds of little transparent, plastic tabs meant to facilitate this operation but it is still a tense situation.

At last the iPad Pro is free and I can have a good look at it. It’s a beauty! I notice that it was shipped with 85% charge so I just go ahead and start the setup. I really give Apple credit for trying to make things as easy as possible for their users. The company knows that I have an iPhone and uses that to transfer much of my information directly to the iPad. Then, it offers to use a recent backup from one of my older iPads to get me up and running quickly. This is very good for me since I spend hours setting up groupings for my apps. I had the new device in usable shape in less than an hour. Good job, Apple!

The new iPad Pro has a 12.9 inch display and only a very narrow black strip around the edges. It’s ALL SCREEN. The display is beautiful and from what I can tell, the video refresh rate is very fast. The Apple Pencil is a nice tool for creating drawings and hand written notes. It attaches to the iPad by a very strong magnet and seems secure. The keyboard folio also attaches by magnets and they are pretty strong but it is easy to remove the iPad from it if I don’t want the keyboard. The cover does hold the iPad up securely in two positions and I am very happy about this. The only thing that I can see that I DON’T like is the charger and cable. I have numerous Powerstation batteries for all of my electronic devices. They’re made for Apple products but the included charging cable is strictly usb-C connectors on both ends. All previous Apple devices that I have had (other than the computers) had a usb-A connector going into the charger. Now, I need to find an adapter to take care of this problem or find a charging cable with a usb-A and usb-C connector. I know they exist but I don’t have one. If this is the only drawback I find, the iPad Pro will meet all of my expectations.

That’s my big day. It has been full of fun. My hope is that I will be able to use the new iPad Pro to edit my photographs and watch a few videos. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to master the Apple Pencil to make some tiny edits to unwanted elements in photos. I can see that this will take time. For today, I’m really satisfied with my new tool. Or is it a toy…

About Vizzpat

This is the post excerpt.

I am a woman, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a sister, an aunt, a friend and most certainly, a human. I could go on to talk about my life’s twisted and circuitous path but I expect the most interesting aspects will come out as I go along so I won’t try to write my autobiography right here in the introduction. In this first entry of my blog, let me just say why I’m writing.

I have never written a blog so I expect that anyone reading this will be baffled as to why I started. I thought it would be fun to write about things I like and maybe even some things I’m not so crazy about. I’m a woman of many and varied talents and I hope to describe some of the things I enjoy doing. I want to make a space to talk about projects that I work on and post photographs occasionally. My interests are currently trending toward photography, bead weaving and almost anything to do with technology. That’s not to say that I don’t still love music, taking hikes in the woods and tuning on the morning news. But, I’ve become disenchanted with social media lately. I will probably find many things to write about once I get started.

In Vizzpat’s World