Chair Repairs - Broken Spring

After pushing my recliner back last week I heard a funny sound.

I did not find the broken spring till the next morning.

What shall I do about this?  Not a hassle I need with everything going on.

I called a local store which sells this type of recliner and asked for their service department.  I was asked to email a photo and they would get back to me.

The lady referred me to a link of Amazon but it was not exactly the same as what was broken.

I don't shop on line so I started sourcing a spring locally.  

I found this set of springs at Rona.  The length is about right but it is bigger in diameter. Should be 1/2 inch instead of 3/4 inch.  Also the hooks on each end don't quite match in placement.

For less than $10 I was willing to see what I could do with these. 

You can see wire at the bottom on the photo which will feature prominently in the solution.  I tried just hooking the ends to the 2 points in question but the closer one would not stay on the peg. I tried several things that did not work.

I needed something stronger than my first attempts.

The wire I am sure I picked up on a morning walk a couple of years ago.  Never know when something will come in handy.

By creating the loop for the pin on the chair I was able to address the fact that the hook on the one end was in the wrong direction.

As well, I could twisted the loop once it was on the pin to tighten it which kept in place.

This works well.

You can see that with the wider diameter it curves a little bit but does not obstruct any vital functionality.  Works for now.

 

Slow Stitching - Embellishments to Book Bags

I went back and revisited my book bags and chose embellishments for some of the earlier ones. 

1. I added a dragonfly charm on a peice of blue felt

2. An orange cloth flower on a blue bag.

3. A yellow and green circle accent for the masculine striped one.

4. Just a bit of a strip of turquoise fabric with stitching for the first one I made.

You will see that I have added a "My Bag" tag to each of them as well.

Slow Stitching - No. 012 - Bundle Book

This is my first piece for week 12 of the slow stitching challenge with K3N Cloth Tales.  

This challenge was to stitch one piece which will stay with me and one which will be exposed to nature for 3 months.

The poem Kathryn shared is the one where if you love something let it go if it comes back its yours if not it never was.  That was too much letter stitching for me so I just Free for my word on the the piece which will stay with me.

I put down the blue circle then the yellow word then the purple butterfly and then the seed stitching all the way around in green.  A final frame of yellow invisible stitch. I chose white cotton on a blue and white gingham fabric.

I chose Came Back for the piece which will be put outside for 3 months.  Mine has not gone far so I know I will be able to retrieve it. 

Those with more nature available in the form of yard, garden and or woods will have many nooks and crannys to place their bundle.

I made a book with four pages.  I ripped my 2 pieces of cotton and stitched down the center. I stitched in white cotton thread the circle and the words.

I had gathered a pinecone, some pine needles, a leaf from unknown bush, some green cedar leaves on my walk yesterday which was glorious.  I was able to wear my spring jacket.  I added a bit of rusty wire as well.

Here are my ingredients for the bundle. 

On the left handside the pages were not stitched together so I put pine needles in between the cloths.

The rusty wire was stood up so I could roll it.  

I found some jute to tie the bundle.

There is a pine cone as well but forgot to include it in the photo.

I did investigate nooks and crannys on my walk yesterday and decided that with the number of people and dogs around I may lose my bundle so I chose my balcony instead.

Today, we are back to the snow.

I will water my bundle regularly so the rust and decomposition can take place.

We will retrieve our bundles in 3 months time for the solstice in June.

Recent Photos

This is the puzzle I am going to make this week.  It is from Eurographics Puzzles and is a reproduction of Marc Chagall's - The Blue Violinist done in 1947.  He was a Russian French painter (1887-1985) raised in the Jewish faith who spent time in Paris in the early 20th century.  He traveled extensively and lived in the in several countries during his long life.

I see that I will need a bigger space than I thought to put this one together.  I will work on that.

I hope all the pieces are there as I did acquire it second hand.  Here' s hoping.












I did some coloring this morning the gorgeous sunshine which was really warm!  Considering that it was -18C at 7:00 am.  That's enough reason to stay inside.  This will become a card.  The coloring book originally appeared in this post.

I finished this book this week.  It was different to read a book written by a man with Kabul, Afghanistan as the setting for the story.  It takes place after the Taliban has taken over the city and affected the culture and place dramatically. The two couples in the story Moshen & Zunaira - wealthy and had careers and Atiq & Musarrat - now a prison keeper with his wife very sick and dying.  It is a very difficult life.

It has made me want to research more about Afghanistan history as they had very different lives before the Taliban.  The couples were more equal it seems before and now there is a drastic contrast in their every day lives.

Yasmina Khadra is the nom de plume of the Algerian army officer Mohammed Moulessehoulm, who is the author.  He took the feminine pseudonym to avoid submitting his manuscripts for approval by military censors while he was still in the army.



I took hundreds of photos this week in the above mentioned sunshine.

This is one of my shadow macro photos.  The object is a small black mesh half sphere in shape. Could be the top of a microphone possibly. 

I love the intersection of the actual metal mesh and the shadow the sun created.  I find the shapes that result appealing.  The dark crescent shape created by the overlapping of 2 shadows is very cool.

The Flickr Macro Monday theme this week was "Shadow".

The mosaic on the right are a few of the photos I took.  You can check out my photo stream at www.flickr.com/photos/smdpics .

I am sharing with
Mosaic Monday #75 hosted by Angie
Through my Lens #236 hosted by Mersad
My Corner of the World hosted by Betty

Tea and Lunch

I started by trying a recipe I saw on Jill's blog last week as part of Mosaic Monday.  These are Herb Scones.  I chose savory with basil, rosemary, oregano, and garlic.  As you can see that I baked them on my pizza stone which works really well and since it is very seasoned no danger of them sticking to the surface.  The recipe yielded 12 scones cut with scallop cutters.

Here's my collection of metal scallop/fluted cutters with really nice handles.  I have a set of graduated round ones in 3 different sizes varying from 2 inch at the smallest and 3 inches at the largest.

The rectangular ones are 1.25 inches by 3.25 inches.  They may be a bit small for certain things but it would be a great for shortbread.  A bit of research would suggest these may be from the 1940's.  I had to be patient and wait quite a while to get what I was looking for but these are excellent.  I had hoped to get square ones in the same set as the round ones.  I will keep looking.

I recently replaced a very heavy rolling pin with a vintage rolling pin which serve me well for many more years.

I made some Masala Chai tea which is the best I have tasted.  It is made by a couple of ladies in central Alberta - The Chai Wallahs.  A bit of honey and some cream.
I drank it from a large shallow cup in blue glaze make by IKEA.  I was thinking it would not be great for drinking but it turned out quite nice.  Update: It is a soup mug and not designed for tea.  Makes sense.

I had an egg cooked in my well seasoned cast iron fry pan.  You can see my restoration of it in this post.  it was certainly worth the effort.   The egg is cooked sunny side up which worked well with the place setting I put on my table.

I had the wonderful herb scones to soak up the wonderful yellow yolk.

Dessert was plain yogurt topped with a raspberry rhubarb compote.  Mom sent some rhubarb home with me on the weekend.  I added some frozen raspberries and a bit of honey and boiled over low heat until the rhubarb broke down a bit.  Nice change from bananas.



Here is the total table setting.  I place a navy table runner over a lace table cloth over a white solid table cloth. 

Still love my little square yellow dessert dishes and the yellow is repeated in the egg and napkin.

Sharing with the following link parties.

Bernideen's Tea in the Garden

Tuesday Cuppa of Tea hosted by Ruth

Share Your Cup #253 hosted by Jan at Daily Cup with Mrs. Olson

R2G Christmas Stack Kit - Set 2

Kits for my class tonight.

I started with the blue and foil starry night designer paper. It is handmade paper.  It was cut to leave a small border of the navy card.
I cut the greeting on the Cricut with the Winter Frolic cartridge at 2.75".  The navy is the same as the card stock as the card and the shadow was cut from vellum.
I adhered these layers together ensuring dry adhesive is only behind the card stock so it does not show through the vellum.  The full greeting was adhered to the card front.
I added a mini silver brad as the dot on the "i" in Silent.

I started with the gold metal star ornament.

I cut gold metallic card stock to 4.00x5.25 inches.  This layer was adhered to the front of the black card.
I designed the starry night Bethlehem layer in black with my own drawing.  It was printed on white card stock trimmed to 3.75x5.00 inches.
I put gold metallic thread through the hole in the ornament. I adhered the metal star to the Bethlehem layer with a Zot then pulled the thread to the back of the white layer and taped down the ends. This layer was then adhered to the gold layer on the card front.

I started with the felt ornament.

Using the navy ornament, I created the Peace on Earth greeting layer and printed it on white card stock. It was adhered to the front of a navy card.
I found an earth clip art on line and sized it to 1.75", printed several on vellum and embossed them with silver powder. I punched them with the SU circle punch.
I cut a length of silver metallic ribbon, tied it to the hole of the ornament and trimmed the ends. I placed the earth circle in the center of the navy ornament and created a hole with a 1/16" punch for the dove brad.
I placed the ornament onto the card front, used a push pin to create a hold in the card front to match the one in the ornament.  Pushed the prongs of the brad through all layers and spread them on the inside of the card.

Gift Calendar - Multipurpose

This is the calendar I put together for the wedding couple.

It's a set of metal hooks with chalkboard at the top in a metal box.  I thought this could be used in a variety of ways.

The hooks could be pulled out and used as a count down calendar for 12 or 24 days before Christmas, 7 days to birthdays, 6 weeks before vacations or  9 months before a baby arrives.

It could be hung on the twine provided being sure to knot each one seperately or they could be hung on nails in a group or installed on a nice piece of wood then permanent attached to the wall.

It could serve as a place to leave notes for each other, hold family photos, hold mementos, or other reminders of grace and gratitude.

The chalk can be used to write anything they want on the small chalkboards above the hooks.

Merry Christmas

I'm wishing you all a very Merry Christmas.

This is the Nativity Set I bought last year for my home. It is black metal and is quite large at nearly 2 feet tall and 3 feet wide.  It allows me to add lights, and other embellishments with magnets if I choose. Here, I chose back lighting with real candles in pillar vases.  I added the electric candle holders in the front as well.  My blown glass birds were added for some dimension and color.  A large pine cone was placed in the center.

I'm sending this card to my on-line friends and those whom I communicate mostly by email.

Dog Treat Boxes

I made Peanut Butter Pumpkin dog treats for our fund raising bake sale on Thursday.

I started with Starbucks Tazo Tea Tins which I covered with this great Christmas Dog decorative paper.  Their scarves and jackets have glitter on them.  I trimmed the paper to the height of the box and used double sided tape to stick it to the box and wrapped it all the way around (about 14").  I then used washi tape in red and ivory hounds tooth to finish the top and bottom edges.  I created tags for each box by printing the details on kraft card stock and punching it out with the Stampin Up! decorative label punch.  I layered this unto a punchie of the same in red paper.  I cut it in half across the width and trimmed the points and glued them offset on the top and bottom.  I then punched another layer from the decorative paper to cover the back of the label.  I placed the dog bone treats into a bag, tied it with heavy red cord and then added the tag so it would hang outside the box lid.  The bottom picture is the treats cooling on racks. These will make a great gift to bring to a hostess who has furry friends at home.

Card Club - April - Cheeky Clips

I found these small metal clips at Dollarama a while ago and thought I should design a card using them. I created a small tri-fold card with my Sizzix card die. I decided to add an acetate greeting which was sandwiched between the 2 first pages. Being acetate it allows you to see right through. The clip keeps this small card closed on the larger card. I matched the ribbon to the clip over a ripped white accent strip. The greetings included Thanks, Happy Birthday, and Mother's Day.