I've been finding more and more ways to bring AI into my maker workflow, and this project is a perfect example of how much time it can save.
It started with my Leaf and Branch Study in TurtleStitch, which I modified to create a circular wreath design. I loved the design I had made but once I had it, I wanted to resize it. That is where I hit a wall. Every single line of code had its own measurements baked in, so scaling the design meant going through and manually recalculating each one. Tedious doesn't begin to cover it.
This time, I decided to bring in Claude to help. I've used AI for coding help before... last time it was Gemini... and each time I'm struck by how much these tools are speeding up tasks that used to eat up my day. I gave it my program and the new parameters, and it rewrote every single line to match the new scale. What would have taken me at least 30 minutes of tedious hand-editing was done in about two minutes. That's the kind of time savings that actually changes how willing I am to experiment... when resizing isn't a 30-minute chore anymore, I resize things a lot more freely.With the resized design ready, I put it to work in two ways.
The Birthday Card
I embroidered the design with the words "Happy Birthday" on cotton fabric, then designed a Silhouette program to cut a paper frame for it. I glued the frame inside a piece of cardstock, and just like that, I had a handmade birthday card.
Cut Files
You need an electronic cutting machine for cutting the files for the birthday card. The .Studio file is for the Silhouette machine and the SVG file for the Cricut machine.
Here is the .Studio file.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18_Gis3dWPLaVpn-a2GyZUO37-8X2M9eh/view?usp=sharing
Here is the SVG. The file extends beyond the viewable area. Zoom out to see the entire file.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c3VNoin_hgqQoPVjIeQQKuhKwR1-lgxp/view?usp=sharing
The Tote Bag
For the second piece, I took a Trader Joe's tote bag and removed the logo from one side. To get access for the embroidery machine, I opened up the side seams of the pocket. Then I removed the "Happy Birthday" text from my design and stitched the outer circular design onto the bag. Inside the circle, I added a monogram from the Brother library on my embroidery machine, resized down to about 0.9 inches to fit nicely. Once the embroidery was done, I sewed the pocket's side seams back closed on my sewing machine.
The result? A really cute personalized tote bag and a matching birthday card, both from one circular design, and a project that came together so much faster than it would have a few years ago, thanks to a little AI assistance along the way.
