Lots and lots of bits

2013 started with lots of little bits.  Bits of lego of course!

We wanted to do the unthinkable.  To make something that used up every single piece of lego that we have.  This project would link together all the legacy lego bricks from Stefan, Premi and my childhood days with the new generation of hand-me-downs and sparkling-brand-new-sets of duplo and lego that Asha and Enoch got over the years.

We started bright and early on the 1st of January 2013.

Step 1 dump out all the pieces on a big blue cloth.  Yes, every single piece we have!

Our building team had Enoch, Rishav Singh and myself as the core - with outside support from Asha and Sheba!

Now the fun begins!

We start out with deciding on what to make.  After some discussion - we choose to make a single animal.  So now we have to make the base on which the beast will be constructed.

 

Then the actual construction work starts!  Lots of sorting.  Lots!

Duplos go first.  We decide that they will make good legs.

By now early afternoon is upon us and the hungry builders repair to another room for a repast.

Rishav is a basketball player and we get some ball skills - courtesy the plates!  

With a good meal in our stomaches it is back to work.  The ladies of the house retire for a nap while the men keep on building.  Such dedication to the cause!

After the legs are set we build the platform for the stomache.

Included are the yellow plastic platforms which are the only bits left from our East German Pebe (a lego duplicate) sets which we had received when we were with our grandmother in 1978. 

More sorting into groups of bricks is the order of the day as we really want to use every bit.  How are we going to use all the wheels?  We decide to incorporate them into the body wall of our creature.  

In the mean time - I start working on the head.  A boat will serve as the lower jaw...

Our old lego motors get incorporated  at the top of the legs - to better bear their weight.  A string of duplo bits becomes the tail.  The animal is taking shape!   But how to incorporate so many wheels - there seem to be an endless supply of them...

The sun has already crept towards the horizon by now.  

We have a welcome interruption of an evening tea.  Enoch - who never wants to waste a minute chooses to tae a quick read.

And so the day winds late into the night.

We have not fulfilled our quest.  

The beast has taken shape - but there are still many pieces to add and he is not finished by a long shot.   Before we clean up we take a final shot....  of our lego dog!

Another day of work on the next Saturday still doesn't finish our original goal of getting all the pieces into one big item.  We start a wall behind him and want to put all the little figures in front of the dog - but the cruel nature of time takes over.

We just don't have the time to get all the odd little bits that we have left onto him.  One thing we know: over the years we have accumulated a lot of lego.   Not quite enough to build a lego house.  

But then again.  We used almost everything we had (and could have just dumped all the rest into the 

stomache of the beast if we wanted too)!  I did hope that we could find another half a day or so to finish it off.

So Lego dog got shelved for a better day... and the weeks went by till we needed the base plates for Enoch's b-day party.  After putting in an hour to try and finish off lego-dog, we call it a day.

A last picture of Enoch with Lego-dog!

... and then it goes the way of all flesh (at least all lego-flesh).... it is dismantled and put back into the suitcases the bricks came from.  So that they will be made into something new again on another day of play.