The Mechanical Doorbell, Part 2: Bash

One of our very first posts on The Urban Cottage was talking about our slightly fantastical doorbell, created from bits and pieces found around the house (follow the link for a reminder). This has been quite a talking point and provides us with much amusement when we open the door to a new visitor to be greeted with "is that your doorbell?! Please can I see it?".

The intention was always to expand this beyond it's initial "ding" to also include a "dong" but a couple of years later we ended up skipping that plan (for now) and instead went straight for "bash".

A very tired cymbal, looking for a new home, has been lined up next to the guitar. A short section of pipe left over from the bathroom is then carefully positioned to catch the marble as it speeds off the end of the original shute and directs it into the cymbal. 9 times out of 10 this then bounces and is caught in an old weaving shuttle.

All in all an excellent addition - not least because the previous incarnation was only just loud enough. If you were in a far corner of the house you were more likely to pick up the sound of a marble hitting the floor than you were the guitar. The cymbal certainly solves that problem!

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Denim Skirt

I wear jeans a lot. When I say a lot, I mean almost every day. The trouble with this is I tend to wear through a pair in just a few months, and most of my pairs go the same way. A hole will appear, normally on a seam somewhere. I'll think about mending them and then notice that there are two or three more baby holes just ready to spring into life, so I just pop them to the back of the wardrobe and buy a new pair. As the holes are all fairly localised to one area and most of the material is fine, I feel bad throwing all the old jeans away and so I hoard them. Then I feel guilty for taking up so much space with useless clothes. What to do?!

Then I found this:

Skirt made by Christephi at 'Christephis Sprouting Flowers'

I got quite excited. A whole new skirt make from all those jeans at the back of my cupboard. I dug them all out and totted up - five pairs of jeans all with plenty of usable material. So, last month, I thought I'd give it a go.

I drew out a pattern according to the instructions and based on a 72" hem line (maybe I should have gone bigger with this?), and cut out material from four different pairs of jeans. I decided to try and utilise the existing hems as this would save me time later - though this did mean I had to reject some of the material being rather worn out!

Next I had to decide how to arrange my strips. I had eight pieces that were all a fairly similar dark blue, and four paler, striped bits. I laid them out in a regular pattern and then rearranged them using a random number generator, and decided that I preferred the regular arrangement (no surprises there).

The next stage was to think about waistbands and pockets. I wanted to make these from a contrasting material rather than more denim and so delved deep into our material box and found some bits left over from making my handbag last year.

Everything now assembled I started sewing together the strips, starting at the hem end of each to try and get as even a hem as possible.

Once I'd sewn together six of the strips (half way there!) I considered the pocket. You've guessed it - I found an online tutorial and whizzed up a pocket set between two of the navy strips. Then I continued to sew the pieces together until I had eleven pieces attached.

Then the zip. I was so pleased with my a-line skirt that I copied this technique, and then finished off the side seam. Finally I made it into the round by sewing along the last of the long seams.

Having then tried it on I decided that the fit wasn't quite right and decided to tighten the seams between each of the panels across the back of the skirt - the equivalent of putting in a couple of darts - so that it fitted snuggly around my waist.

All that then remained was to tidy up the waist. This proved trickier than I had originally thought, mostly due to my stupidity. When I had cut out the waistband I had made it rectangular based on the measurement at the top of the skirt. I think this would have been fine before I tightened the seams, but in doing so I added quite a bit of tapering between the measurement at the top of the skirt and one inch further down. I attached the waist band either side of the zip, then sewed along the top with no problems as this was the length that had been measured. It was only then that I discovered that there just wasn't enough fabric to stretch zip to zip at the bottom of the waistband as it was that bit further down the skirt. Make sense? Probably not - I'm rambling!

After a lot of easing the material into position and careful pining I added a couple of snips to the waistband and hand sewed it to hold it in position on each of the seams so to hide the stitches.

So what should have been a quick finish turned into a bit of a faff. But its all learning - I certainly won't make that mistake again!

Casual skirt made out of old jeans. I've been wearing this one a lot since I finished it, denim wearing habits don't die so easily! What do you think?

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The Mechanical Doorbell, Part One: Ding

I have been scheming this doorbell for quite a while. As you may know I scheme quite a bit. This one has finally come to fruition for one reason: I decided to scrap the plan to buy the expensive bits and decided to build the whole thing with stuff we have stashed around the house. 

This doorbell handle releases a marble that rolls down a run, making a noise on the way. The first half is completed - enough to get it to chime! 

The bell pull is an old road bike brake, pulling a tensioned chord to the marble release. 

The release mechanism is an angled hole drilled in a block of scrap wood. It is held under tension by a bundle of elastic bands, all mounted on a bit of old Ikea desk. Enamelled copper wire provides the feed mechanism and stabilises the release.

From here part of a toy marble run (yes I know, definitely cheating) transfers the marble over to the rest of the bell.

When I say bell, I really mean acoustic bass guitar. It had been gathering dust in the back of a cupboard for too many months. No modifications have been made to the guitar - it hangs from the bracket (a pair of old shelf supports) and everything else is suspended around it.

To catch the marble a plastic scoop is made from an old water bottle, upturned and supported by a length of wire coat hanger.

This then feeds into a section of bamboo sushi mat (used once for making felt) that directs the marble onwards.

And that is it for phase one. A single "ding". Keep an eye out for part two!

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