Tag time

Now that my ICADs are complete, I have a few hours between Sunday and T Time.  I thought it would be a good time to catch up on a few challenges I like to play in.  This one is for Wendy's theme at Tag Tuesday.

Wendy wants us to think of fruit, especially the fruit that is ready for harvest about now: Pears and Apples.

I think it was Erika, aka Bio Art Gal who had a hole reinforcer she had stamped, so I did the same.  I used one of the stamps I won from Valerie, but I admit, I'm not much of a stamper.

I don't own a pear stamp, so I tried to draw one.  Silly me.  It SORT of looks like a pear.

Then I had to go and mess it up by trying to sew around the pear.  Since I have no feed dogs that drop, this was even more challenging than the drawing I attempted.

I had an apple stamp,

but messed it up when I tried to leave a shadow on it.   I should have left it alone.  At least I didn't try to sew around it!  Did anyone besides me notice that the shadow on the pear and the shadow on the apple are on two different sides?

So many mistakes, so little time.

I couldn't even find green rick rack and didn't have time to dye any.

This tag, fraught with peril, began with a hand drawn pear I tried to color using water soluble crayons.  After I had attached it, I stamped the apple using black Staz-on, which is a red rubber wood mount.  I then colored it using water soluble crayons.  I sewed the background which was black construction paper to the beige card stock using variegated thread.  I stamped the hole reinforcer, then added it to the punched hole.   Finally, I added the turquoise rick rack to the tag.

Thanks for joining me for this tag, made for Tag Tuesday, I got wrong at every turn.  I am always grateful, but especially so today, that you made it through to the end!

Monday Murals: more bridge photos

I want to thank my friend and co-administrator Susi for linking yesterday's post to Art Journal Journey.  Today I am once again joining Sami at Sami's Colourful World and her Monday Murals.  I've decided to post at my regular time, but please be aware that Sami's mural linky won't go live until 11:00 a.m. my time (please see the clock on my right sidebar).

Last week I explained about the bridge that separates our town north to south for several miles.  This week, I'll show you the other side of the bridge.

I asked the youngsters (not related to me) who were visiting from California (USA) to please stay with the car, because you can't believe how busy this street was.  It may have been the time of day, or it may be that busy at all times.  I have no idea.

I'll be honest.  As much as I like abstract art, I didn't "get" this mural.  Of course there was absolutely NO sign of an artist's signature on this side of the bridge.

I wasn't about to cross the street to check out the mural that DID have something written on it.  In fact, I took deleted several photos with trucks and cars in the photo.

When I enlarged this photo in Photoshop, I couldn't read the word in yellow, which I believe is the name of the mural.  I was able to read 2018 and the name of the artist: ELLAMONIQUE.  Under that were her assistants who were Larry, Kim Nguyen, and Victoria Nero.

If you enjoy murals and want to see more from around the world, please visit Monday Murals at Sami's Colourful World.

Happiest of holidays

Once again, I'm joining Erika, aka Bio Art Gal, our host this month at Art Journal Journey with her themes polka dots, stripes, plaids, and patterns.  However, this is a scheduled post because I'm off celebrating Smithsonian Museum Day and don't have access to the internet.

I know everyone most think it's too early for Christmas and so do I, but I have several sheets of this Christmas plaid paper that is perfect for Erika's theme.

I think the artist tried to emulate Norman Rockwell,

but no one can match his style.

You can see where I got the title of the post and the journal page.

Yes, it's Happiest of Holidays.

Bleubeard was tickled to see the cat playing with the ornaments, too.

For this page, I began with a sheet of 12 X 12 inch (30,48 centimeter) scrapbook paper that I cut down to 8.5 X 11 inches (21,59 X 27,94 centimeters). To that I added German Scrap across the top and bottom of the page using E6000. Finally, I sewed the focal image in place using variegated thread.  Because I can't drop my feed dogs, I decided not to try to sew around the top of the tree.

Thanks so much for joining Bleubeard and me today.  I hope you will also join us at Art Journal Journey. 

Friday Smiles 338: A horse is a horse

It's Friday and time once again to join Annie (at A Stitch in Time) and the ladies at Friday Smiles.   Last week she was on hiatus, so we are delighted to see she's returned and full of things we can all smile about.  However, I am getting ready to leave later today, so I won't be around this weekend.

Instead of finding something fun to photograph this week, I'll leave you with this which is apparently a true story from NASA (U.S.'s National Aeronautics and Space Administration):

Does the expression, “We’ve always done it that way!” ring any bells? The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That is an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that is the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads. Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that is the gauge they used. Why did “they” use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used the same wheel spacing.

Okay! 

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that’s the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for (or by) Imperial Rome, they all had the same wheel spacing. Therefore, the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot.

Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse’s ass came up with it, you may be exactly right. This is because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war-horses.

Now, the twist to the story…

There is an interesting extension to the story about railroad gauges and horses’ behinds. When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs.

Thiokol makes the SRBs at their factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses’ behinds.

So, a major design feature of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse’s ass.

If that didn't make you smile, nothing will!  It's time to see what others are smiling about this Friday.  Please don't forget to start your weekend off right by visiting Annie for a few Friday Smiles.  We would love to have you join us, too.

Horse photos from Pexels.  Other images from an internet search.