Have you ever wondered what the inside of a VCR looked like?

Well... I found out today. We have a rather large collection of VHS tapes which we are gradually replacing with DVDs. However, my precious Star Wars movies are still on VHS. Our VCR's are starting to expire. They no longer rewind well or in some cases at all. So this morning, I popped open one of the bad boys and fixed it.

Ta da....


I had to take the front panel off at which point I found all sorts of broken plastic bits inside rendering the outside buttons useless. So I'm leaving off the panel and having this rather exposed looking circuit board with buttons.



I went back and labeled them with permanent marker. Looks a bit Steampunk if you squint. I was trying to get into the motor which is located directly underneath where the tape rests. So I took the bottom off too...



A bit of a dead end really. But a rather interesting texture with all that soldering.
So here is the actual problem. You can see in the picture a little bit of a blue mark and a circular rub mark. The rub mark was caused by the driving gear (which is the white gear in the picture and it not engaged) rubbing against the housing. I put some machine oil in there a got it working again.



One of the tapes still wasn't winding well, so I took it apart too. Each tape has 5 screws, and that is really all that is holding the whole thing together. It is really amazing that they last as long as they do.



Once you have everything open, you can't bump anything or it falls out. And there are these hair thin springs, that if you sneeze would go flying. I worked with pair of tweezers to put some springs back in place, and then carefully put the top back on, clamped it in place and screwed it together again.



It worked long enough to get all my Star Wars tapes rewound, but further testing this evening revealed that it was not working again. So I will be removing the entire housing and just letting the whole thing sit open, so I can see if it is actually rewinding or not. If not, it will be open and I can drop in some more oil.

When I was in grade school, Dad brought home an old TV set. My sister and I were set up each with a set of small screwdrivers, wrenches, and soldering irons. We spent an entire day taking the whole thing apart down to the circuit boards, transistors, resistors, and anything else that could come off. We sorted everything into little piles. It was a lot of fun and very interesting. It left quite an impression on me... as to this day, I love to take things apart and see what is going on inside.

Finally got some sewing done!!

Of course it involved about 3 hours of ironing and mending before I had things cleared off enough to work.

The new dog needed dog beds. The first one didn't turn out quite right, so I'm only posting the large pillow bed. The inner pillow is made up of a shell fabric with a Goretex laminate. So if the dog pees on it, the pee won't soak into the polyfil inside. One of the benefits of working in the athletic industry. I have loads of technical fabrics.



The completed cover has a super soft minky-like brown fabric on top with a red twill bottom. Of course it has a zipper in it, so it is removable and washable.



The recipient seems to approve.



I also managed to finally sew up some shoe bags!



I have purchased a few pairs of shoes that come with super lightweight non-woven tear-if-you-breath-on-it "fabric". I love the idea of shoe bags, but they need to be somewhat durable. They save LOADS of time when packing. You don't have to clean off the soles of your shoes, or pay attention when you are packing them in your suitcase. So I made 6 bags... enough for 3 pairs of shoes.

Now that things are tidier down here, maybe I'll finally get some more clothes done.

Halloween Creepies

Here are my darling goblins contributing to the creepy Alice in Wonderland theme.....


The little Cheshire Cat turned out well....




This creepy guy was on the front porch...

Tis the season....

Cat peelings....

.... and PVC pipe.....

..... these are a few of my favorite things!!!


will post more as the evening wears on....

Meet the Irving

This is the Irving....


He joined our household last weekend from the Oregon Humane Society. He was described as being "extremely lovable and people oriented, a bit of a lap dog, and a love sponge". He came from California as part of the Second Chance program. He has been in shelters since early August and was not adopted in Bakersfield, CA, so he was sent up here to Portland around Oct 13. We adopted him on Saturday, Oct 16. Bakersfield thought he was a Long Hair Chihuahua... NOT. Oregon Humane Society thought he was a Spaniel Mix... closer. He has an unusual color for a small spaniel. The only small spaniel (other than the cocker) with a blonde coat is the Tibetan Spaniel. But Irving has long legs and a long body, so there might be some Pinscher mixed in. We are guessing a German Pinscher. So for now we are just calling him The Tibetan Love Sponge.

Irving the Tibetan Love Sponge needed a run or kennel. We had nothing for the first night... so he slept in bed with us. The next day we cleared a space and began work.





We emptied and moved the compost bins. Here they are sitting empty in the backyard before they get reinstalled.



We added this fence by using a pre-fab picket length and cut it apart to make a gate and small fence section.



However, we discovered a challenge with the width of the Love Sponge's chest and the distance between the pickets.
Here is a visual representation of the geometry set before us:



.... which means that the line marked with CD can EASILY fit through the line marked with AB. This was remedied by the speedy installation of additional pickets who's line should have been marked with something like "I can't believe that I have to go back to the hardware store again" line.

The resulting fence contains the Love Sponge and still looks rather sharp. It needs a proper coat of paint.... it's raining, so the painting will probably happen sometime in April.... but the run is functional and and is easy to use.





Lot's of nice cedar chips smell great and will hopefully keep the fleas down. Those suckers love damp bark to hibernate in.

Some serious love for the Spring 11 runway...

I discovered the Full Frontal Fashion website and love the new nude transparent garments coming down the runway.

I am seriously in love with this diaphanous trench coat...




And the lovely Beth Ditto....

Sunhat from Summer

I am recovering from a root canal this morning... or rather waiting for the novacaine to wear off so I can have some coffee without spilling it down my front... and was going through my old pictures and realized that I hadn't posted my fabulous sunhat project from this summer. The idea came, of course, from Burdastyle using the Summer Beach Hat project.

I was at the farm in Idaho, so the pictures are from my mom's sewing room.





I need to find a finished picture of me in it.

It's fall... must be time for knitting

I am still lamenting the disappearance of Knit 1 magazine. But Vogue Knitting had these lovely patterns on their site:



.... very inspiring and lots of color. I still need to get my tank top done that I started this summer.

As far as I got....

Summer is officially ending, and I didn't get all my patio projects done. But I did make some progress...



Yes, the motorcycle is still on the patio... more on that later.
I got rid of the mysterious pile of pots and managed to create this arrangement by stuffing pots inside of pots... no actual planting was required.



I redid the fabric on these deck chairs. The fabric was purchased at IKEA last year or the year before... but it ties in all sorts of colors going on with the outdoor furniture.



For what little outdoor time is left... it will work. There is always next year. I will get those darn legs on that blue table yet.

The Patio Plan

I've been totally bummed at the lack of summer, but that hasn't stopped me from tackling a few patio related projects which started with this overall plan.



The extra wicker tables in the lower left of the picture went away via Craigslist... so we made some money there which was promptly reinvested into spray paint!

I have managed (5 cans of spray paint later), to whip the wicker settee into shape:







I'm in a robin's egg phase.... again.

We have legs for the table top....



which have been scrubbed and primed. Just waiting for the install, so I can prime the table top and then give the whole thing a couple of coats of blue. I think I'm going to do oil base for this one, since it will be sitting outside for half the year. We will put it inside for the winter and the really wet parts... which is a lot of the year in Portland..., but it will get rained on during the dry-ish parts of the year too.

A Week of Painting Projects

There are many projects around the house/property that needed painting or repair or cleaning. So that's what I did this week...



The white kids' picnic table was peeling. The reddish wood table was split and needed gluing. (I opted not to paint this one... yet.)

I had lots of enthusiastic help. This table and chair set belonged to my mother-in-law. We painted it gold for Miss Elsie. Now that Mister Ewan has it, it needs a color update.






So now it is a lovely spring green....


The finished picnic table...




All of the paint was on-hand, leftover from other projects. So after three days of prepping, priming, and painting, we have some lovely, clean furniture that looks brand new. I also glued a bunch of other broken items that had been piling up. I really, really, really like clamps and Elmer's Wood Glue.

Finished Dress

I did manage to get the black and white dress done.



I need to tackle the others... but I've been painting, cleaning, and reducing some clutter. Will post more later.