Help! How to make thick lines for a stencil/template

ljmatthews2 · April 2017

Hello everyone!
I need help with figuring out how to make lines thick in order to cut a stencil/template for a quilting block. The lines are dashed so that each shape is not completely cut out of the material (mylar). In MTC these lines are too thin and do not cut the width I need. After cutting, I need to be able to slide a fine point marker in the cut grooves so that I can trace this template onto my fabric for placement of applique pieces. I cannot find how to convert thin lines into thicker ones on MTC and still keep the dashed lines. Can this be done in MTC? Thank you in advance for your help. I have attached the file I am working on just in case my explanation is confusing.
Thank you,
Lisa M.

Crazy_Mr_Zing · April 2017

Did you create this in another application ? If so how did you import it into mtc

ljmatthews2 · April 2017

I scanned a paper pattern and then imported into MTC via pixel trace.

leslie6111 · April 2017

Have you tried shadowing the lines you want to thicken?

Di-lite · April 2017

I understand what you want to do - but shadow won't do it as it loses the line breaks. The only thing I can think of is that you save the part that you want to thicken as a png and then re-trace in which will give you broken lines instead of dash lines and then use the shadow feature to increase their thickness. A bit long winded but that it is what I would do in these circumstances. If you want it done for you I'm more then happy to do it but I'm guessing you want to be able to do it yourself.

Crazy_Mr_Zing · April 2017

This is quite a puzzle
If you pixel traced I wonder why that does not show as a cached image in this file
tracing line art usually results in double paths

are you able to share the image you scanned ?

ljmatthews2 · April 2017

Hi, Sorry, I should have explained that after I scanned the image, I changed the lines to dashed in MTC. This is why the lines appear that way in MTC. I need the space in between so that the whole shape doesn't come apart. Here are two of the images I scanned. Thank you so much for your help.

--Lisa

Crazy_Mr_Zing · April 2017

As Leslie suggested creating a shadow of a path would effective create a fatter
But I think when you shadow a dashed line creates shadow of the whole path not one for each dash

I think I would change the line style back to no dashes

make the paths open

Create shadows of the paths and then use the eraser to make the gaps

The advantage of shadowing a open path is
a shadow of a open path surrounds the path like this

So you original path will be in the centre of the shadow

you can then hide or discard the original paths

then use the eraser to create the gaps

Di-lite · April 2017

I cheated - I changed your lines in your original MTC into straight lines and exported as an svg and then imported into Serif and thickened the lines of the first star and then dashed them and then exported as a png and traced back into MTC - this was the only way I could see to do this. If you want the other pages converted I can do it for you but it doesn't solve you for doing it for yourself.

tvoss123 · April 2017

Wow. I learn so much from reading what you all do to solve a problem.
Thank you.

ljmatthews2 · April 2017

Hello everyone! Thank you so much for helping me! I am going to try to replicate on my computer this morning how you made the stencils out of the scans. This community is the best! Thank you for this forum.

--Lisa

Help! How to make thick lines for a stencil/template

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Help! How to make thick lines for a stencil/template

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