Moving to a new plan, musically!

 It's time to move from time-keepers to something else, music!  A gourd ukelele...but I play a cello!  What a gourd ukecello!?  It could happen!

Adding Gourd Leaves to the Neck

  

Using more pieces of gourd scraps to make leaves, makes a clever arrangement of foliage along the outer edge of the neck. Curling wire gives it the appearance of tendrils. 

...back to the fork!

The fork has been resurrected for the manually-turned gourd hourglass.  It was too irresistible and the stem, although in interesting option, just did not seem reliable as a hanger. To make it work, a horizontal slit was made into the neck of the dipper gourd, and a parallel one was also made.  The fork was wedged through the neck and made stable in both slits with pieces of gourd to make the fit tight.

The belly of the dipper gourd had been weighted with sand, but more sand was added as additional protection against tipping. The birdhouse hole is till an issue but that will be addressed later.  Right now the hourglass hangs securely.  Holes along the outer part of the neck have been drilled to accommodate leaves made of gourd scraps.

So far, so good.

A Season Ends at Dollar Tree

Yes, it is time again for another season to end at Dollar Tree and the seasonal leftovers are 90% off so with hourglasses in mind a purchase was made. Hummingbird feeders, with their sloping sides and narrow bottom holes, were 20 cents each - the perfect price for experimenting without feeling a financial pinch.

Some are smaller than others and, of course, the color may be an issue unless dark particles are used but for experiments where the process is explored, these feeders will be fine.

What About the Fork?

As work progresses on the hanging hourglass, the big question is what can be done about a bent and twisted fork?  Surely there is a way to make use of it in other hourglass possibilities?  Surely!

Hanging Hourglass Discovery

Initially, a set of light bulbs used to make an hourglass was capped at both ends with small pieces of gourd scraps and wrapped with green wire to match the sand inside. There was no particular design in mind other than using the Dollar Tree materials already on hand.  The florist wire at Dollar Tree is available in several colors so it was matched to the color of the sand. Going through the pile of gourds and gourd scraps in the garage, this long neck dipper was found.  Started along ago as a birdhouse and then left behind, its time has come - so to speak. It has a curved neck and a long stem that also curves.  Also located were some leaves made from gourd scraps, so those were tossed into the pile for consideration.



Now a plan is starting to take shape: use the green wire to wrap the neck of the dipper gourd with leaves and tendrils. That will bring the elements together for a cohesive design....leaves, tendrils, gourd vines, and time?  It could work perhaps. As a test, the hourglass was held up to the long neck dipper and actually hung on the stem. The discovery is it hung on the stem just fine - no fork hook was needed at all! By inverting the hourglass and hanging it on the gourd stem, the hourglass works and nothing more needs be done except decorating the dipper gourd as the base.

A Hanging Hourglass

Instead of turning an hourglass over using a turnkey such as the one in a previous post, or by turning over the whole unit like a traditional hourglass, the hourglass itself can be designed with a hook at both ends that can be hung on a hook.  It will still be manually inverted but not with the whole unit. This allows for the construction being used as the base for the hourglass to remain stable and only the hourglass is moved.

To this end, and to stay within the earlier parameter of using Dollar Tree items and gourds, I picked up a couple DT forks and make a hook by twisting the tines with a pair of pliers.  Looking at it from two perspectives, the middle two tines are the hooks and the two side tines become ornamental curls.  The fork handle will be the part anchored into the gourd.  What gourd construction would make sense of these forks and the idea of hanging?