Hi guys, just a short note that my guadec talk is online here
untar it and run lah.html to watch the show. if you want the source SVG’s you can find them in under pix/final.
all images should be considered public domain. If its not worth stealing, what is it worth right ? 
peace hippies
for this tutorial you need a recent build of inkscape
here is the final svg file : http://pastebin.com/f1ff1cae6
open up inkscape and click on the pencil or pen tools. Select the new spiro mode
notice the shape setting? this applies a pattern along path to match a brush like effect rather than just a solid width path.
have a scribble with the rough shape you want to accomplish
let go and checkout your awesomely smooth shape .. its probably not exactly what you want yet.. but we’ll fix that later.
to see what inkscape has done for you, checkout the path effects dialog fond in the path > path effects menu.
if you have your path selected with the node tool, you can edit your pattern along path on-canvas. just click the show “next path effect parameter for editing” (we should rename that button). Anyway, have a play with the default.
If you want to try a brush like effect, just create a star with the star tool, convert to shape (ctrl+shift+c) and delete a few middle nodes (ctrl+delete) to get a similar shape to what you see here.
All done!
now you can fill and stoke your new path effect like it was a normal shape. have fun!
someday .. i dont know when. 2geom will probably support spiro splines. and someday (hopefully soon) this means native spiro drawing with a spiro tool rather than this path effect hack we’ve got going (notice the red original path ?) eww .