M.P. Update #4: Not Distracted, Just Side Questing

As a recap from my previous post, I was slowly starting to go back to TinkerCAD, and have been working on my tavern-style book-dividing inserts (better name incoming…). And I was hoping to look creating curves and curls, as I’ve got the block shapes down, but I got sidetracked.

I’m in my side quest era, I think. I make plans, and then these side quests pop up, and when they make logical sense, of course I’m going to focus on those before “playing”, such as it is. After all, it’s still learning, right?

Right?

Fun fact – probably very much related – I am undergoing some much later in life ADHD assessments. So that is starting to explain a LOT in my life.

Anyway.

My husband came to me with a job. He wanted something to hang a tool in the garage, so I ended up printing that for him, after some deep diving into PLA vs. PETG, and temperature performance (PLA tends to be more brittle, and has lower temperature resistance, but for stationary use, seems to perform well enough). PETG vs PLA and this forum post were actually most helpful in determining which product to use. I originally printed in PLA, just to give him something to hang up, and because we aren’t seeing the temp fluctuations that are really going to affect things just yet, but I will be re-printing in PETG, which will be my first time venturing into another type of filament, so I’ll be sure to document that for next week!

And then once I got on the “functional printing” bandwagon, I’ve just kept going.

Well. Kind of. Functional, yes. Necessary? Not entirely.

First: the yarn bowl

In the evenings, when I’m trying to relax and unwind, I like to work on my granny hobbies (as I call them). I cross-stitch, quilt (occasionally – not as much lately), or crochet. I have ways to organized my cross-stitch and quilting supplies and hobbies, but when I’m crocheting, I have to be careful where my ball of yarn rolls off to, or I have a lab who will happily “retrieve” the ball for me.

Happily.

So I needed a way to contain my yarn, and my mother (who knits) has a lovely wooden bowl, but they are expensive! And I wanted something quickly. Amazingly, we have a 3D printer in the house now, so my side quest #1 was ignited. I debated a number of options, considering the size of the bowl, height, formation of the loop where the yarn is fed through, and visual appeal. I looked at Etsy, MakerWorld, and Thangs (still love saying that one), and there was a lot of overlap between the three sites. I’m debating printing another option that takes a little more time, but I went with a dragon egg-esque option for now. Because I could. And voila!

And if anyone crochets and needs something a little more ergonomic, Furls Crochet has some beautiful resin hooks that are well worth the higher price point. Especially if you wait for a sale, like they have around Black Friday. I don’t know about you guys, but I am all about the sales.

Second: the key dish

This was almost stolen by my youngest as a crib for her mini babies, but I managed to get it back (with some bribing) and have it safely at work now. I tend to drop my keys anywhere on my desk, and then they get buried under mountains of paper, and I either a) forget them, and lock myself out of my room, or b) panic, and have to sort through said mountains of paper in order to find them so that I don’t lock myself out of my room.

Fun times.

Regardless, I’m a huge fantasy reader/fan, and love Lord of the Rings, so when I saw this one, it reminded me of the elves and Rivendell, and I couldn’t resist. Is it extra? Maybe. But it brings me joy, so here we are. Surprisingly, this one had minimal supports needed, so the print was actually quite speedy. Another bonus.

Third: mini Cathedral for ambience

We’re veering away from “necessary” here, and more into “this looks really cool.” I like to bring things into my room that look good, that make it feel a little more homey, and that add some visual interest. And I’m starting to test the printer a bit, in terms of what it can do with files that you download from other people. I’ve been playing with scaling things up and down, I’ve played a little with the speed of a print (though I don’t want to mess around with it too much, since things have been going well so far), and I can custom colour things. I haven’t tried to print anything that I’ve custom-coloured yet – the filament waste on multi-colour prints is outrageous! – but I’ll probably try it a couple of times just to test it out.

As for next week (later this week), I just got a notification that it’s time for some maintenance work! So I’ll take pictures or videos of that, and we’ll see how else the week unfolds.