Thread: Monday Madness Alleviated by Coffee and Tea

Delaney arrives bearing a box of freshly baked blueberry scones and offers them to Wilson with a smile. "We can bake for you on occasion, right?" The treats are accepted and added to the morning's bounty.

Taking a mug of tea in exchange for the box, she walks over to her accustomed table and sits, girding herself for the day ahead.

*****

And it's Monday morning. Whee! There's a hearty breakfast spread out with lots of fresh fruit and an emphasis on the coffee this morning. Apparently we need the caffeine.



I do in fact have tea and a scone this morning. Also some fresh blueberries. Yum!

I don't have a lot to say except the usual: So much to do with time passing quickly. I keep thinking of more things that need to be done, but they have to come in order. I keep thinking that once I hit my stride, it'll smooth out. I think this week is a little difficult because it's the last full week I'll be working on the research project/job that I started in January, and then I go out of town this weekend. (And then *another* week will be gone. Yikes!)

Anyway, it wasn't a bad weekend at all, though I can tell that summer's definitely approaching. It's almost like a race to see if I can get out of here before the worst of the heat arrives. Hrm, that could be even more motivation.

I should get back to wrapping work up.

'Morning, Landroval!

Okay, so my dashboard feed is distracting me a little this morning. While I do love gaming, for the most part since I have always had a perfectly good computer, consoles haven't interested me much. Still, this picture is worthy of notice.



A bounty of gaming systems in a custom cabinet, all connected, powered, and ready to play. It's an impressive collection, to say the least. In the video tour linked below, you can see that in the shelf to the left in the above picture, he also has a collection of handheld systems. I cannot begin to fathom the investment he's made in this, but what I really think is cool is the fact that he has taken such good care of all the old systems/games, and not just tossed them away. It's something that has taken time and dedication on his part, and I think it's very cool.

Here's the video tour, and the owner mentions that the Wii and Xbox360 are actually in the living room for his son to play. I see the Playstation on top, but mostly, I can't even begin to identify them all.

Mornin' allez. I don't have much to say beyond "mmmmm... scones 'n coffee" so I'll just leave this blurb here and wish ya'll a grand 'un.

A certain someone happens to be graduating at the end of this week (Masters in Librianess-ness), has an occasional tendency to doodle, and has been known to complain from time to time that they're somewhat forgetful. To meet all these various factors, I figured I'd build Alditha a notepad. The original concept was just a single piece of leather that would house a 3" x 5" pad of paper and a short pencil. The front and back would both be tooled and I figured I could complete the thing in a day or two. It turns out just drafting it took about that long. It wasn't particularly intentional but I think this was my first 100% original thing. I didn't draw any inspiration from anything else, or look up other notepads to see how they were made. I didn't even use anyone else's art or doodles or what not. I doodled the design myself very roughly before making into a clean draft in GIMP.

The first problem I ran into was probably one I should have caught. My draft intended for the strip of leather to be about 11.5" long (to allow space for the pad, pencil, and margins) but paper tends to only be 11" long. I'd fixed that by lopping an inch off one of the "sides" of the draft and then forgot that I'd done that until after I'd printed the thing out and cut the leather to match it. By that point I had my strip of leather all cut and it would fit over a pad of paper but didn't leave any room for the pencil. To redress this situation I drafted up an attachment bit that fixed around the bottom of the whole thing, both holding it closed and housing the pencil stub. I cut that from some thinner leather, molded it as best I could with the aid of a few rubber bands and a rivet setter and then I glued any of the joints together. I probably should have stitched it too but it's such a small bit I wasn't really confident on how that'd turn out.

Since the main part was going to have to make a 180 bend in the middle I used one of my v-gouges and the skiver to thin it out in the middle and then molded it. That worked pretty grand but I probably should have let the leather dry more before I started tooling it. It was still pretty saturated after the better part of a day and took a few impressions that weren't quite intended. I'm trying to do a better job at my tooling, making it smoother and what not, and trying to tool on soggy leather didn't much help. After finishing the front I figured I'd forgo any pattern on the back to keep things simple and allow for any future modification down the road (like a belt clip or something). This project was really the first time I got to use my groover and overstitch wheel together as they're intended and I think they came out pretty darn nice.



So after two days of tooling, skiving, molding, and gluing I was ready to stain the thing. I knew I wanted to keep the design its original color and the interior and border were going to be treated with kote. I applied a few coats of super sheen to the design to make it all shiny and resistive and found out why paint brushes can be bleh. I wash my brushes after each use but super sheen acts like a thinner and as soon as I started applying it to the design some of the green stain from some previous project started leaking onto it. I was able to prevent the mistake from affecting the entire design but the initial damage that was done couldn't be fixed. In the future I think I'll use cotton swabs for all such applications.

Other than that the only problem I had with staining was figuring out what color to use around the design. I wanted to use a highlighter to set off some of the texturing and narrowed it down to Briar Brown and Raisin Mahogany. I wound up going with the latter so there would at least be some color on the thing and after seeing the finished bit I think that was the right call. I also added an impromptu green strip to the attachment. I'm still not too sure about that bit tough...

I applied the finish to the stain a little earlier than I usually would to get a weathering effect. This was perhaps a little stronger than I'd originally intended on the back bit, but I think it worked out alright on the whole.

The assembly took another two or three days and I cut up some liners that came with the beginner kit projects to use on the interior. I used rubber cement around the edges to glue them in place and then used a saddle stitch aaaaaaaaaaall the way around the thing to really fix it in place. Stitching through such heavy leather is still a chore and it wasn't really aided by having to clean errant rubber cement off the awl and needles every so often. Still, having the whole thing marked out was pretty handy.

I installed some segma snaps (usually used for gloves) to hold the whole thing closed and while I could've given them a bit more "finger area" tabbage on the attachment, that came out pretty well. It does look a little out of sorts so close to the design though.

The final bit may not be the most practical thing in the world, and I can't really say right now if it'll ever see much use. None the less I would consider it a fair success on the whole, at least from a crafty standpoint.

afternoon, Landrovalrim,

Del, that is an absolutely awesome gaming setup. However, I heard the guy left a kin on Landroval because he couldnt tank and kept breaking crowd control. heard the burglars were gonna backstab him. So all that fancy shmancy equipment didnt mean squat cuz he couldnt play!!!! j/k

Anyway, I am home doing housework today, and I am going to stop now and play a bit. my stomach is beyond acting up, so I had a bit of soup and a few crackers for lunch. Oh and raspberry tea. Come to think of it, make it a double, Wilson!!!

As I said on facebook, while cleaning, I was listening to James Marshall Hendrix, and the Experience. They are all gone now, Jimi, Noel, and Mitch, but they laid down some music that will defy the time/space continuum, that is if there is any Justice at all.

"Well, Mountain Lions found me there waiting, and
Put me on an Eagle's wing.
Said Mountain Lions found me there, and
Put me on an Eagles wing.
He took me past the Outskirts of Infinity,
and when he brought me back, he gave me
Venus' Witches Ring.

And he said Fly on,
Fly on,
Cuz your a Voodoo Child
Voodoo Child!

From the song Voodoo Child (not the one they play on the radio which is Voodoo Chile (slight return) ) but the 15 minute or so blues version with Steve Winwood on keyboards on the Electric Ladyland album, which still stands as one of the most innovative rock albums of all time.

Jimi would have been 70 in November of this year.

I really really do mean to stop by more often. Just getting home from work. been so busy.
Wanted to share that I have a new grandbaby for those that I don't have on FB.

Oliva Mae,born May 19th @ 6:18 am 8lbs 10 oz This is grandbaby number 9

Fabulous Pad Garaf

Grats the the Grad Gweann.

Nifty set up Del, I put a pic up on my S-I-L FB page as he and my daughter are hardcore console gamers

Doc, wish I could share work with you... its alway seems like feast or famine. I do hope it all balances out for you

Feel better Faythe.

and was that an OBJ sighting? Yay!! Will be in Cali next week, will have an In and Out burger for you.

Originally Posted by Rhyssa

and was that an OBJ sighting?

I just missed you! I was in SD this past week and I sure wish I could have stayed another week and had a burger with you

Good evening, all...

I know it's really late, but I figured it was better than not showing up at all. I'm totally ready for Friday, by the way