Author Archives: caitlinburke

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I took some time off going out of town a couple of weekends in a row, but I still got a few things done, which I’m finally documenting. Here is a proof of concept, about 5 inches on a side, of a new cat bed I’m making.

The final piece will have fleece on the inside and wool on the outside, be circular, and will have quilting on the bottom side, but I wanted to piece it together and figure out how I would finish all the seams before I actually cut into the fabric (which is pretty nice). Before I sewed this, I sketched it on paper and then pieced one together with tape and napkins, and those exercises were very helpful. This little fabric piece came together in about 5 minutes and disproved a concern I had about how I should pattern it, so it was both very satisfying and genuinely helpful.

Mr Bun stuck his head into it but declined to be photographed.

Solar dragonfly

solar dragonfly

Fossil. August 2005

Fossil is a vary large solar powered mechanical dragon fly.
In sunshine the wings will periodicly flutter and the mouth section twitches.

Length: 28cm. Wing Span: 33cm.

Fossil is so named because as I constructed it I was thinking of Meganeura,
a huge 320 million years old dragonfly-like insect belonging to the Protodonata group,
which had a wing span of around 70cm.

See larger photos and more at James G Watt’s site.

What Daily Thing? There Could Be Life Out There!

Last night I took a night off, and tonight I did, too, but I at least got out of the house. I joined Kishore Hari’s Down to a Science program for tonight’s presentation from Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute.

Shostak talked about the history and mission of the SETI project, and took lots of questions from a largely excited and completely sympathetic audience. I can’t really do justice to Shostak’s talk. If you’ve followed SETI at all, frankly, there was not a lot of new information, but I hadn’t quite realized what an engaging speaker he is ad lib.

And he took potshots at dolphins, Neptune, San Mateo, college education, the impoverished prisoners of the 4 dimensions we experience, people with navels, AND the post office. I mean, in a nice way, but I can’t help saying, you know, the post office has a really hard job. It’s like DNA, when you think about it, especially if you really love your Netflix subscription, as I do – so many things can go wrong it’s kind of amazing what a good job they do.

Anyway, if you get a chance to see him in an interactive environment, go!

Unfairly Maligned Taxidermy

Well, not all of it – some of it is legitimately awful taxidermy. But some of the entries at Crappy Taxidermy are clearly trying to do something other than simply mount the remains of animals in order to preserve a lifelike appearance.


Did you go there yet? OK, admittedly, a lot of it is just awful. If you’re patient, though, you’ll see some weirdly wonderful things in there.

Daily Thing #6

I found this pattern for a simple paper box at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, a favorite destination for me. I printed out the pattern in February but never made one for Thing-a-Day – I was too concerned about how bad my cuts would turn out to be. I finally sat down and decided to brave the clumsy cutting.

Behold its sloppy seams and uneven edges! Also, because the material is thin and unlined with tissue paper, the top falls off. Nevertheless, a successful first outing. It’s always good to remind yourself how much easier doing a good job looks once you just plain finish a not-so-great one.

Daily Thing #6
Daily Thing #6-2

Daily Thing #4

The last couple of textile toys I’ve made, I’ve made more or less freehand, with no real planning beyond maybe a light sketch to guide me in cutting pieces out. One of the things that happens is that what I cut out is the “wrong” size. It’s not seam allowance – I am reasonably familiar with my sewing machine and my stitching options, and my seam allowances are fine. But I find that when I get the pieces partly assembled, I don’t have quite enough room to close the piece entirely, or am worried I’ll have to do a lot of hand-sewing that won’t stand up to cat play.

Tonight I decided to go a little further, starting with a detailed sketch of a proposed toy, including all the pattern pieces, where the stitching goes, where the detailing goes, and notes about all the materials. For this example I chose a sushi. It’s a simple shape but not obvious if you want to use a sewing machine for close to all the major seams.

I initially worked out piecing this together in my head on a bike ride, during which I realized that the way I wanted to assemble it (with a pretty good chunk of embroidery for detailing the top of the sushi roll) would involve LOTS of hand-sewn thread, which is not a great thing for a cat toy – too easy to loosen and possibly swallow. That made this object a particularly good choice for that standby of the user-interface designer: the paper prototype!

Sushi pattern and model

I think I’ll be doing more with paper—just for itself, too.

Daily Thing #2

Daily thing #2 is the internals of something I’ve been meaning to finish for months and, I hope, will succeed in finishing this month. It involves at least 2 more big pieces, one of which will probably be pretty time-consuming, so … baby steps.

Anyway, here is the “peritoneum” – it’s for a seed-filled toy, and this is the inner bag that holds the seeds. It’s only clipped shut for now, because I need to pick up some more seeds before I sew it shut.

No, I wasn’t trying to say anything about blood supply in the kidneys – I was just using leftover pieces of embroidery floss, and I didn’t have enough to do all the appliques in a single color.

I briefly thought about putting a spine and part of the ribcage on the back, and then I remember this little thing will be boneless.