You may have noticed an absence of updates on Bluesky/Ko-Fi/Patreon. Well, that's because I got nerdsniped. Again. I mean, it didn't take much (it never does), I have been meaning to clean up the nameless utility that I use to expand an Ink/Stitch source file into all the variations and sizes that come in my design files.

And someone on Bluesky asked if the utility was shareable and I looked at the pile of undocumented spaghetti that even I sometimes forget how it works and said "lol, no." They suggested their students could help out at some point and I said "sure."

And the next day, my problematic knee ligaments both gave out. Like, "trouble walking unsupported" levels of giving out. So I made an ortho appointment and gave them a rest in the meantime. And since I had already wrapped up the design work on several designs and couldn't do much more until I could stand at the embroidery machine and test them, I started coding.

(Should I have been instead working on the library software? Well, sure.)

In addition to producing the big package of all possibilities, it will be able to produce a single file. This means you don't have to download the big package - you could just download the SVG, load it into Nameless, and export "a 5x5 JEF file for a Charm with no decoration, Satin shading, and a standard Face." No more trying to pick out the right filename from a list of hundreds.

Here's the big thing: it runs externally to Inkscape so you don't have to learn Inkscape or Ink/Stitch, at least not to customize existing designs.

Ink/Stitch does get run in the background to produce the stitch files so you'll still need it installed. The nameless utility will be able to change the stitch types, rearrange or turn off layers, change colors, and things of that nature, just not have any node editing. I'm pretty sure it'll be able to add Lettering, which if that's the case I expect it to have parametric snap tab shapes and whatnot: the ability to build a fob or patch around it. Really, I ought to be able to automate a number of tutorials: name fobs, custom lettering, color-sorting, the applique creation described in the cropping tutorial (cropping itself works better natively in Ink/Stitch and I should update the rest of that tute).

For now, my knees are behaving well enough I can go downstairs and run a few of the Sugar Bunnies. A tiny percentage of them.