Thursday, March 1, 2012

T5 Challenge - off to a good start

This is the eraser I hope to make into a sewing machine. First I wrapped a piece of tape around it to guide my cut and, hopefully, keep it straight.
Using a straight blade to make the first cut
 I then repeated that on the other side to get a rectangle roughly the 1:12 size of my RL sewing machine.
I then sketched the shape of the machine on the front of the eraser
 and on the ends.
 I used the straight blade to make what cuts I could. Some of the inner cuts couldn't be made with the straight blade then I remembered the X-Acto carving blades I had and did more shaping with them.
I used an emery board, needle files and a scalpel to do the final shaping.
I then coated the shape with gesso to try and smooth it out a bit.
 I used a hole punch (from Dollarama) to cut the side knobs out of another thin piece of eraser.
 Using another piece of eraser, I made a foot pedal.
I took a photo of the RL sewing machine dials and resized it.

While the gesso was drying, I started making the work table. My original plan was to make the table top with the stir sticks but that would have given me a tabletop that was only 15" wide - much too narrow. So I decided to make the table top with a double layer of cardstock, the table skirt from three stir sticks and the legs from square toothpicks.

The cardstock ready to be glued together.
 The four table skirt pieces with the leftovers below.
Four square toothpicks with the points cut off.

The skirt and legs glued to the tabletop.
Right side up
Pattern and pincushion on the table. The pattern is from Jim Collins and the pincushion was made from a cap filled with a piece of cotton ball and topped with a small piece of red felt.

Here the printed panel has been glued to the front of the machine. A straight pin was pushed through the left hand top piece and forms the needle. The foot plate is painted on with a bit of silver nail polish. The spool holder is another piece of straight pin. The punched out circles were pasted to the right hand end. Two pieces of thread (my one allowable addition to the list) were glued into the end of the machine: one has the foot control on the other end and the second has a bead for a plug.

I've since sanded the front piece a bit more but it's still not as smooth as I would like. I should have smoothed it a bit more when the gesso was still damp.

4 comments:

  1. Looks good to me Maureen! You have lots of patience...Hugz J x

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  2. You are something else Maureen,so creative!

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  3. What a fantastic sculpture! Great work!

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  4. Thanks to all of you. I've having a lot of fun with this.
    Maureen

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