Magic Sandcastle - a silly stop motion of the building and a lego man takeover...

Last week we went on holiday to the Ardnamurchan peninsula. Alex took some lego men with him, of course, and we made them a castle to live in. We took photos as we did it to create a simple stop motion of the castle being built and the lego Hamlet and lego bagpiper climbing to the top. Here's the castle;

I did the decorations, Alex did the fortifications!

And here is the video;

Magic Castle from Alex Pickup on Vimeo.

We also made a timelapse of the tide coming in and destroying it - I'll add than when we have it on Vimeo.

Super Galaxie First Aid

I have been in Accident and Emergency, hospital and my GP for various tests, checks and scans recently, and I can only assume my sewing machine is feeling left out. Today, as I finally got started on a project I have been promising to make for a volunteer on TheSite.org, it started knocking and grinding and we had to attempt some first aid.

Innards on the outside

They are complicated things these sewing machines...

Here's the project in progress (if anyone is wondering, it will be the logo of the 12th Mechanized Brigade - our volunteer is also in the army). I was using Heirloom stitch which is a very thick stitch involving a lot of needle movement - but I don't think this should cause a problem.

I tried to do some minor adjustments before taking the side off - they just led to three sad and broken needles. With some trial and error, I managed to solve part of the problem but the knocking was still there.

Unfortunately, our first aid failed to fully identify the problem so, while I did get an interesting look inside my machine, I am going to have to take her to be serviced.

Sorry G, you'll have to wait a wee bit longer for your cushion....