Today’s adventure was installing a ViviMAGE Explore 2 projector on my ceiling. Why you say? In order to project sewing patterns onto my cutting board.

I got clued into this by a Facebook friend, who pointed me at a Facebook group called Projectors for Sewing.

The goal is to save time and paper when using PDF patterns. Instead of printing them out, taping them together, and then cutting them out, you simply open Adobe Acrobat and project the file onto your cutting table. (Ok, there’s a bit more than that involved.)

The hardest part was drilling the holes in the ceiling. I’ve got sprinklers and lights up there and didn’t want to accidentally hit the cords or pipes for either of those. I’m pretty sure that sprinkler and where I installed the projector share a stud.

The next step is calibration. There’s a dance to do between having the image in focus, the distance from the projector, and the size of the projected image.

I seem to have gotten lucky and had the focal point hit at my table top at a good size for cutting. The table is set at an ergonomic height for me, so I didn’t want to change it.

The resolution I’m using on my laptop is 1080p, and the display size in Adobe Acrobat is 30%. This gets me this for calibration.

The squares and diagonals are aligning on the cutting mat well, it’s not 100%; however, the instructions said to stop when you were at 99% good, and this looks like that.

The last thing I did was some cord management to help prevent any mammals from nudging the power or HDMI cord and throwing the projector off target. Also, I’m crossing my fingers against earthquakes.

I’m excited! This is something I’ve wanted to do for a while. I can’t wait to try it out with a pattern!

— Syne

P.S. I also have the thought that with the drawing tablet I use for my comics, I’ll be able to make and save digital alterations to my patterns. A note to any comic artists out there that also sew!