Just a Quick Note

I've been rather quiet lately, and it may continue for a little while yet; we have three family members in hospital, in Europe and in Canada, and in this time of Covid there is, of course, no visiting, so we are having to rely on information from doctors and nurses via the patients' family members. We have been keeping in regular touch with their families for updates, and it sounds like there is good progress.

Today, we woke up to more than a foot of snow (nearly 30 cm); it is very pretty against the bright blue sky, but it is also quite messy. I managed to drive my car into and out of a parking lot that had not yet been cleared of snow, and really worried I wouldn't be able to leave again, but my small car is mightier than I thought, I guess, as I made it back out to the cleared road with only minor slipping.

There has been an urgent demand  locally for hats and socks for the homeless, so minis are temporarily on the back burner, although I hope to get some mini work done tomorrow during our regular Wednesday virtual meeting.

Stay well and stay safe!

Magnolia Shrubs

I mentioned that I was making some magnolia shrubs for the planters outside the flower shop, Floriana. This is the first attempt; although I like the look of the plants, the bare branches looked odd to me. The only thing I could do to finish things up, was to make some flower and leaf buds. For these, I used tiny painted twists of model magic, a very lightweight air-dry clay.

After painting them a very light green, I glued them here and there on the shrubs, and once the glue was dry, brushed the bases very lightly with a nearly dry brush and the colour of the branches. The petals were made from white paper, one side coloured with a pink-purple colouring pencil, following a tutorial in the May/June/July 2020 issue of 1 zu 12 magazine, written by Hannelore Merchel.

They look quite nice in the French wooden planters, either side of the door to Floriana. A very small touch of spring, when it is bitterly cold outside with lots of snow. Because of where we live, the sky is an incredible light turquoise blue, a colour I always associate with the coldest winter days, and the sun is bravely shining.

Back to the wooden shoe workshop now....

 

The Back Wall Is In Place!

OK. I haven't been posting that much, because I will admit it took some courage to tackle this large back wall of the wooden shoe factory. However, after doing the right back corner section, I realized it would be much easier to do all the rest at once, and I decided today was the day.

It didn't take as long as I feared it would; I worked in 10 cm (4") wide sections from floor to slanted beam, and it looks as if it just might work. There is some unevenness where the sections join, but I can likely sand that into shape and use paint to sort the rest. The dividing wall slots nicely into place in the space left for it; I used a scrap  piece of wood during the stuccoing process to keep it clear of the paper clay.

Now that that wall is done - well, except for painting and aging - I can decide where to place my little pot-belly stove, which warms the workshop on cold days. I have a metal pencil sharpener stove for this purpose, but think it should really stand on a brick base, rather than right on the tamped "clay" floor. I also have to decide where to place it; the original has it in the right back corner, but I think it would warm the space better if it was in the centre of the side wall. 

The stove requires piping, and that involves cutting off the metal top in order to add a section to go into the wall. It will also require a fitting on the wall, which I will have to work around when I put the paper clay stucco on that wall. I can't do the floor until I have the walls in place, but I can probably place the windows and the door. That should make it look much closer to finishing!

I am going to assemble two magnolia bushes destined for the planters of the flower shop this afternoon, provided the stink of burning plastic disappears! It looks like the built-in vacuum cleaner has just died...

What Happens If You Don't Think

This morning, I tested the long slanted roof section of the wooden shoe factory, after having finally glued in the buttresses and the toilet block. The roof section wouldn't fit! Scratching my head, I decided I didn't think ahead well enough; the thickness of the paper clay stucco on the hallway wall took up a good 1/8" of space (approx. 3 mm) . Not a huge measurement in the common run of things, but it makes a big difference in 1/12th scale!

Scary! I had to trim back the finished stucco, and hope I didn't chip things too badly. It is all to the better that I discovered this now, as I will have to do the same thing in the corner of the workshop, and it would have been a lot more difficult to chip away in that confined space. The dividing wall hasn't been glued in place yet, as I still have to do the "clay" floors. It was, therefore, fairly easy to lay it flat on my worktable and slice and sand away.

Lots of dust mess, minimal chipping of the rest of the wall(whew!), and now it fits. But, I wasn't thinking ahead again, and I knocked two of the little coat pegs out of the other side of the wall. Sigh! Now I will put those back in place, which involves Superglue, and that item and I do not have a good working relationship....