Printer Cover

Have you ever laid in bed all cozy in your blanket and thought, "I wish my printer could be as cozy as I am"?

You probably not.

But I have.

Or at the very least, I thought my printer deserved a better dust cover than an old t-shirt from a work event.

This has been on my mind for maybe a year. Mostly motivated by the fact that my cats like to jump on the printer and move the sad cover from its place and get cat hair everywhere. (My printer is also a scanner. I recently scanned a bunch of documents to import into paperless-ngx, which I finally got around to installing, and all my documents included at least one cat hair.)

I didn't take a picture of the sad cover, but here is my printer in its resting place on my office shelf.

As a side note, I have thought about getting a new printer a few times in the past few years because an eco tank printer sounds nice. I use my printer so infrequently that it seems like it's not worth it. But at the same time, every time I use my printer, I feel like I have to replace the ink cartridges because they dried out since the last time I used them. (This happened quite recently.) Maybe if I had the passion and mental fortitude to actually run a card/sticker small business like I had dreamed about. But I no longer dream about that. So I will probably use this printer until the ink cartridges are not for sale anymore.

A week ago, I visited my parents and asked my mom if she had any old fabric I could use for random sewing projects. She said yes, if I can find the box. Luckily, the box was not too lost in the abyss that is my old bedroom that is now an extra storage room. None of the fabric is anything I would wear in public, but they could be useful for lounging clothes or non-apparel projects.

For example, there was a bit of quilted fabric she had made and never used. That seemed like prime material for a bag or a cover. Perhaps... a printer cover.

I took measurements and drafted what pieces I needed to cut. Then I cut out a pattern and laid them out on the fabric and ensured that there was enough material.

Then I went ahead and cut everything and put them together. At each step, I made sure the cover actually fit on top of the printer. The pieces I cut didn't line up exactly but that's what seam allowances are for, right? 👀

So after like six hours, I got the base together.

The back and front are shorter to account for the power cable in the back, and the control panel in the front. I also planned to make a flap to cover the control panel when not in use.

I took a break for dinner then worked on adding binding to the bottom edges. Also using fabric from my mom's collection. So it is not the most desirable color, but at least I don't feel bad about messing up. I spent another one and a half hours on the binding before going to bed. It was the most productive day I've had in a long time! Which inevitably meant my mind and body would crash hard and it would be followed by several incredibly low energy days. Hooray! (Not actually hooray. I hate it.)

The last step was attaching the front flap. I thought about doing loops and ties. But I settled on using zigzag stitches.

When the printer prints stuff, the control panel is automatically raised at an angle to extend the output tray. Ideally, the control panel raises the flap enough so the paper can come on the output tray without getting caught. But only time will tell. I did print a test page and it came out fine, but it could depend on where exactly the flap is sitting (because the flap ended up being a little taller than I planned after adding the binding, and also is not perfectly rectangular because I am not good at cutting fabric). But if the flap is in the way, or I need to access the control panel, it can flip over the top easily.

I also added some velcro on the inside of the side panels and the sides of the printer because the cover still slides when my cats jump on it.

The cover looks like something that should belong in an old lady's home. It certainly doesn't fit my current aesthetic. But surely I will transition into the old lady aesthetic in the next 40 years.

As you can see, I haven't done a lot of game dev work. I think I'm procrastinating. I do have a better idea of what the gameplay will be — a collection of mini games that relate to different events and aspects of my life. And I'll only focus on making the first mini game. But I think starting any dev project from scratch is always so daunting.

But at least I'm doing something even if it's not what I planned to do.

I'm also in the middle of some garage reorganization. I finally put up some hooks to hang my climbing bag. It's very close to the driver's side of the car so (1) I don't forget to bring it with me and (2) I don't forget to put it back before going into the house. I still need to put up some pegboards (that I already have, they are just collecting dust right now) to organize some of my tools so I can have more shelf/cubby space. I will make a post about it once it's done. So if you never see a post about it... you know what happened (or rather, what didn't happen lol).