Xmas Robbin'

Life-drawing at Candid Arts, Islington

The Zoo of Tranquillity: The Woodpecker

This was so fiddly and the result is kind of disappointing. The mechanism makes the tree move back and forth, which in turn causes the woodpecker to move. The idea is that this creates the illusion that the woodpecker's motion is shaking the tree. Unfortunately, it's quite difficult to build up the right rhythm to make this convincing. It mainly looks as though the tree is moving and the woodpecker is hanging on for dear life.

The Zoo of Tranquillity

While clearing our his grandparents' attic, a friend of mine unearthed a copy of "Spooner's Moving Animals" and passed it on to me.

This 1986 book is out of print now, although there seem to be plenty of reasonably-priced secondhand copies online. The book contains instructions – and pieces – to make seven automata. The book also delves into why each automaton works the way it does and Paul Spooner has designed the models with different mechanisms in order to teach the reader a range of automaton techniques.

The copy I have is missing pieces for three of the models (the Goat, the Lion and the Wedding Cake), but I intend to try to make the other four over the coming months. They are:

• the Woodpecker
• the Lawnmowers
• the Horse
• the Anteater

Tower Bridge

Based on a true story!

This is from the same series as the Battling Knights and the Executioner. The pieces for this required cutting out by hand, but a lot of it uses a relatively thin card so cutting them was fairly easy. It took me a while to figure out how the mechanism fitted together though.

Process photos after the cut.

Weaving

Recently I impulsively bought myself an Ashford Knitter's Loom. James, possibly fearing an evening spent helping to set the thing up, wisely suggested that perhaps I should start by learning from someone, rather than just having a stab at it on my own. And to this end he very sweetly arranged for me to have a lesson with Ali Holloway, who has been weaving for 25 years.

This is the result of my first two hours of weaving (before washing):

Life-drawing at Candid Arts, Islington

eReader case v.2

About two years ago I made a case for my beloved Kobo. Alas, it has not lasted; silk is not very durable!

Here's version 2, in what is hopefully a more robust material, a thick cotton.
 

Graffiti

Bermondsey Street.

T-shirt cushion cover

This t-shirt was one of the first presents that my husband ever bought me. It is 10 years old and doesn't really fit me any more, but I am too sentimental about it to hand it over to a charity shop. Instead I looked online for something to do with it and found this Jezebel post on turning a t-shirt into a cushion cover.