The weekend flew by without a chance to look at the new cutting machine. Yesterday I finally set it up. Initially I thought I was going to use my iPad to control the machine, but it is just outdated enough that it is not supported by the software or machine. That's going to be a bit of a pain since my computer is upstairs, and the machine is in the basement. It meant a few trips up and down the stairs to get the firmware updated, but I did get it there. Pro tip: do not try anything else in mySewNet while updating the machine. It must finish its routine BEFORE you click the OK button after starting the firmware update.
There were 2 things I wanted to achieve with this first attempt. First, I wanted to make sure using Inkscape to draw the cut lines was going to work. And then, I wanted to actually cut something.
Since my next project will use a whack of labels, I drew a 1” grid destined for an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper in Inkscape, and saved the file as a Plain SVG. Exporting the file into mySewNet was easy enough, and the cutting experience was problem free. But that’s not the end of it. The next step was to peel the little 1” squares of paper from the cutting mat. What. a. Pain. It was hard to peel the squares off of the mat. I think it took about 15 minutes. Easily half of them tore, so I guess it’ll be scissors or an old rotary cutter to make the labels. Oh well. Maybe that was just the wrong thing to cut for the first go.
So my goals were met. Inkscape will create cut (SVG) files the machine can use, and I actually cut something successfully as well. Not that I managed to get it off of the mat, but it’s a good start.
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