The Make Something Every Week Contest

[Qingdai]

I also cleaned up an area, donated bags of stuff to V.V. of A. then found my camera cord in the process, so now I can bore you with photos of pie.


Take that, Ymir!



That would be my nectarine raspberry pie you're staring at.

[BrotherMan]

The horror! The horror!

[Ymir's blood]

You aren't fooling anyone, Qingdai.

My current 'project' proceeded a bit this past weekend after an indeterminate time. I can't remember if it was this past Halloween or the one before, but I bought a pair of pajama bottoms with skeletons on them* but they didn't fit. There was more than enough fabric in the hips but the elastic waistband came close to cutting off my circulation. Also, the waistband had a logo printed on it which I don't like. So back whenever it was, I cut the waistband off (it was just elastic) but couldn't decide how to proceed from there. This weekend, I finally pulled it off of the top of my room divider and sewed a new hem to get rid of the ragged edge.

I just don't know how to create some way to cinch it. I thought of sewing a drawstring inside the hem but was afraid I'd sew it in place by mistake (my stitchwork is functional but not pretty) Also, I wasn't sure how to have the drawstring 'exit' the hem. Sewing elastic inside might work, but also seems like a pain to size and then sew in place. I've considered just sewing a drawstring type thing to either end of the front but that seems likely to make it bunch up there.



*The pattern is the same as the hat that Freemonkey gave me for Secret Santa some years back.

[S.Vashti]

make loops around the hem for a draw string. In order not to have the pants sag between the loops when you draw it close, make about twice as many loops as normal, and stitch the loops to the pants twice, at top of loop and bottom.

Make the belt loops in any of several ways. small rubber bands, fabric, flat ribbon (would be my choice, no need but to cut and sew to pants, cord, pretzel loops, onion rings, metal key rings, the list is practically endless.

[LadyShea]

I've made drawstrings bags out of pillow cases this way, but the hem has to be large enough for the drawstring to thread through

Cut two small slits into the front of the hem about an inch apart, put a safety pin through the end of a drawstring and thread through the hem with a pinch, gather, pull type working. Tie in a bow at the front at the comfortable cinch point. The drawstring could be anything sturdy enough to tie, like twine, small rope, or just a long tube of fabric you sewed up, heck even elastic or sewn together shoelaces

[LadyShea]

The Grandneighbor wanted a tie dyed shirt, so I made her one in her chosen colors of turquoise and yellow. I had a lot of extra dye, so took an old white flat sheet I had (nice one in its day, but it's fitted friend got torn) and did the same colors to make a duvet for Kiddo's bed and it turned out AWESOME!

He doesn't use covers at all, and most duvets and comforters and blankets are a bit scratchy on his sensitive skin, but 500tc Egyptian cotton? Should be nice!

[Crumb]

I made chocolate ice cream and it was delicious.

[roastelk]

since last weekend I have made 32 ball valve housings, 113 bushings and 200 injector nozzles.

last weekend I made then welded on spring mounts to fit an axle to a frame for my neighbor who wants to build a box trailer but has no clue how. ( I willingly work for free as long as there is cold beer in arms reach)

I'm also in the process of figuring out how mount a 787 Seadoo Rotax motor into a 14 foot aluminum utility boat...my winter project.

[Ensign Steve]

Okay, I was inspired by this pin, so I did a couple of my own.



Man I cannot take a picture to save my life, apparently.

So, supposedly they make it so they don't tangle up so bad in your pocket, so we'll see how that goes. At any rate, it'll help us tell ours apart from each others' and others' and maybe increase the lifespan.

[livius drusus]

Bud warmers! I think they're adorable.

[Qingdai]

I feel useful. Last week I made rhubarb/grapefruit preserves.

This week I fixed up and painted this desk I found for free on the roadside. Qingdai Jr. picked the paint and helped paint. I rebuilt a drawer, fixed the drawers, cleaned (it had mouse poop in it ) sanded it and lined the back. Little known fact, 1/8 inch plywood doesn't cut easily.

[LadyShea]

LOve the desk!

[Ymir's blood]

That desk looks like it would be a good place to eat pie.

[curses]

I'm making a few Halloween cards!

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I needed a Halloween card for my Reddit secret scary santa so I decided to make one. Went to the craft store for a mooch about and found these cute treat bags and some fun Halloween decorative card. I merged the two and plan on using construction paper on the inside to mask the edges of the treat bags.

[BrotherMan]

I had the hardest time finding this thrad. I thought pea started it for some reason forgetting for the moment that she never starts new thrads. Also, we don't have a Repair Something Every Week Contest thrad but since this repair involves building a whole new piece for the thing I'm repairing I'm going to go ahead and plonk this right here AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.

But before I even get to that part, I have to tell you the harrowing tale of harrowism that was so harriffic that it couldn't be worse if there were a herring involved! And even if there were a herring involved I would not have been surprised. Those fish are crafty bastards, I tell you what.

Heap many years ago my friend and I bought a living room set. He likes to think he bought the sofa piece and I bought the chair, but the joke's on him because of reasons. Quick aside: It was hilarious to get him out shopping for furniture. We walk into the store and he immediately - and I'm not kidding - immediately sat down on a piece, without looking at the price and exclaimed "Okay, this is it." He's glad I talked him out of that because that set was twice as much as the stuff we actually bought, which was on sale and discounted because it was the floor model and last set in stock.

ANYWAY. As it happens, the chair broke a little bit. The break was on the inside. Some gusseting piece was all unhappy with the way I sit down or something and gave up. My roommate's first repair was alright. It lasted a while, but it broke again some time later. My initial re-repair has lasted for a long time, but I've never been happy about it. I keep waiting for it to go really wrong and break so as to be unusable.

Until today. Today I determined is the day nothing bad will ever happen to my chair ever again so long as the material lasts. I make my list and check it twice then head out to the local Goods and Sundry store. I thought for sure the craft store would have the black felty material that would cover any sins, but they didn't! But I am a clever Bort and figure that the landscaping material will do in the pinch. (It does, but I'll get to that later.)

I gather up most of the things I need but to my dismay there is nobody around to make the custom cuts I need for my project to go forth. I'm not dismayed or anything. But just then I realize something. How to say this delicately? I feel the urge to make business, if you catch my drift. I wind my way to the facilities and do my duty. But since I had the free time on my hands I decide to be efficient and multitask.

While I was otherwise occupied, I replied to one of Tara Strong's tweets, which in and of itself was a reply to Donald Trump. She speculated that the Donald's announcement could be about ponies and she proudly declared that Twilight Sparkle was, of course, best pony.

My reply was succinct: Sparkle/Dash 2016 Friendship you can believe in!



And on my way home I thought of an opposing team and slogan: Discord/Pie CHOCOLATE. RAIN.



And when I finish my business there, I return to the shopping mission. While debating which materials I should use, I realize that I left my phone in the ... place that I was. ASIDE #2: Twice before, exactly two times that my friend and I visited a specific Panera Bread restaurant, I did this same exact thing. Use the ...thing and forget my phone there. Both of those times, fortunately, my phone was where I left it. THIS TIME, I was not so fortunate. SOMEBODY STOLED MY PHONE WHAT I LEFT IN THAT PLACE WHERE BUSINESS TAKES PLACE.

(This isn't really the harrowingest part of the tale, but it's dramatic and terrible and annoying.)

A good citizen hadn't yet turned it in to the front desk, because I checked twice. Once soon after I realized it was gone and a second time after I finished gathering materials. It was just awful. I had determined that when I got home I'd call myself and ... I don't know. Hope that it was a decent person on the other end who just wanted to do the right thing. But my internet addled mind was awash in what if conjecture. What if the person demanded a reward? What if the person just loled at me? LOLED AT ME, PEOPLE. I AM WHITE! THIS JUST DOES NOT HAPPEN! And then how terrible the process for killing that phone and getting a new one would be. JUST. TERRIBLE.

But there's good news, everbody. Just after I'd checked out and was on my way out the door. Good Working Man found me and delivered unto me my phone, mostly unmolested.

Once I was made whole again, I began storing my stuff in my tiny Honda car. Unseen by me the plastic bag holding the tiny things had ripped open and a box of staples had dropped out. Hey, I said, those don't belong in the cart anymore. Those are mine and they go in the bag that I just put in the trunk! I grab the staples and - okay, parents, you should send children and small pets out of the room - I grabbed the staples by the flappy bit where they might've hung them on a peg in the store, you know? And just then whatever flimsy ass glue that held the whole box together gave way and staples rained down in the parking lot like it was mother fucking Christmas out there. Without even thinking where I was (in public) I said things that I'm not proud to have said.

Mother. Fucking. Herrings.

Oh! So, my project to fix my chair is almost complete. I installed some, what I hope will be, heavy duty gusseting and what I think will be a bomb proof bottom to the chair. All I need do now is reattached the feet and everything will be right as rain. My plan now is to replace the screws that were used to hold the feet with some new screws just for grins and giggles. I'll report back when that part is all done.

[Crumb]

[thedoc]

I had a day off today, the daughter was off work, so the grandkids didn't come over, nothing to do and all day to do it. Then the phone rang and the wife is sitting along side the road with water and steam blowing out of her car. Spent the rest of the day getting and replacing the expantion tank on her cooling system while she took my truck to go to work.

[thedoc]

I have been wanting to build a set of shelves for sheet music, but about 2 weeks ago I saw a small chest of drawers set out for the trash, I picked it up in my truck and brought it home, it only had one drawer in it. I stripped out everything for the drawers, put in some 1/4" plywood, trimmed the edges and now I have a cabnet, without doors, that is 32" wide, 18" deep' and 34" high with 4 nice shelves where I can sort my sheet music for what I want to work on now and what I want to keep for later. The most time was spent waiting for the Tung Oil finish to dry.

[Ensign Steve]

So the morons who lived here before we did decided they needed a space to park one more car (because a driveway large enough to stack 3 cars 4 deep wasn't doing it for them, I guess) so they turned the front stairs 90 degrees, which caused a seriously dangerous head-bangy hazard by the front door. Those of us who live here are conditioned enough that we avoid it unconsciously, but far too often our less practiced neighbors hurt the hell out of themselves and it makes me feel kind of bad.

So since tonight is trick-or-treat and I remembered to get candy, I decided to make a light-up ghost to hang from the hazardous part so people would avoid it.

Step one: remove the round flashy-things from the bottom of these cheap souvenir mugs we picked up at a night game.

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Step two: plastic pumpkin, white towel, duct tape, and flashy eyes.

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Step three: cover with "white" pillowcase (the filth represents gore and decay, and says nothing about the grease content of my hair and skin, nor my aversion to doing laundry)

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Easy peasy!

If I had started earlier, I might have sewed some of it instead of just using rubber bands and paper clips, but it is what it is.

[Ensign Steve]

Action video ... after dark!

Light up ghost eyes - YouTube

[BrotherMan]

[Ymir's blood]

I need to make a stopper for SkelePig before storing* my pennies in him. Cork would seem the most likely material, or else a truncated cone of rubber. I don't think either of them can be found in my scrap box though.


*abandoning is more accurate.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by Ymir's blood

I need to make a stopper for SkelePig before storing* my pennies in him. Cork would seem the most likely material, or else a truncated cone of rubber. I don't think either of them can be found in my scrap box though.


*abandoning is more accurate.

You could use the cork out of a wine bottle, though it might be difficult to put the cork in place after emptying the bottle.

[Ymir's blood]

The hole is at least an 1.25" diameter, so a wine bottle wouldn't be big enough. It'll probably have to be oversized and then cut down.

[Demimonde]

I was able to find a black rubber stopper at the hardware store for a planter/fountain project I made once upon a time. In truth, it was a blubbling Jacuzzi tub for Contra's hermit crabs.

I found one in the diameter I needed that also had a hole small enough to accept an air line. Something like that might work for you, plus already black.