Please Bear With Me and My Camera(s)....

 This may be a bit of a messy post, as we're experiencing camera woes once again. The camera I was using has developed a mind of its own, and is flipping photos I want to import to the blog from horizontal to vertical;  no amount of editing is fixing the issue.

This little rug is now done; it was partially done, but I ran out of the background floss colour, which had no number or band on it, and finally broke down during my recent vacation and pulled out the entire previous background. I don't like pulling out! The colour scheme is interesting; it is from a very old (50 years or so) pamphlet I picked up second-hand some years ago. The size makes it useful for both 1.12 as a small rug, or in half scale as a full-size rug.

Now, this is the photo that absolutely WILL NOT behave! I have flipped it numerous times, and even cropped it to get rid of the stain on the surface to the left, but nothing works. It is from the book that I was given recently, and I did it first because I really like this blue and cream colour scheme. It is also a smaller rug - I worked it in 22 ct. instead of 18, as the pattern recommended - and will also suit both 1/12 and half scale.

This is where the mess really took off. The old camera was replaced by a new-to-me camera, that has more pixels. It came to me without a manual, and although we have managed to get it to show the thumb-nail photos on the old card, it will not allow me to take photos yet. It appears to take the photo, the flash goes, but then when I go to download it to the computer, there is no photo there. So, you'll just have to trust me when I say that I also finished a lovely Bokhara rug, in browns, reds and cream. When we figure out the new (old) camera, I'll post a photo.

In the works also are grapes; they are still too purple for my taste, which means discarding that batch of clay and starting over. I've "lost" my recipe for lovely red grapes I made a few years ago, and suspect that the instructions I tried to use this past week just gave the wrong quantities of clay to mix. I'll try again!

Baskets are also on my work table; I'm making a wooden basket with two bail handles, hopefully for the grapes when I make them. I'd also like to try making woven baskets out of card, as with a bit of patience and paint they can be made to look a lot like ash splint baskets.

Hopefully we can figure out what is going on with the cameras soon!

Here's Hoping This Works!

My camera isn't responding well, which means the following photos are likely over-exposed or out of focus, but I thought I'd try anyways!

Last Wednesday, I did some clay work for the Autumn vignette, and these are freshly dug potatoes, which I think came out fairly well.

The apple photos are very sad, in that I can't adjust the flash mechanism; we're at the tail end of the current tropical storm, which is leaving us pretty much in the dark and the camera won't work without the flash, and with the flash the colours don't show at all well. However, I'm quite pleased with the apples, they were coloured with chalks before the polymer clay was baked.

On Friday, we spent the day at a huge outdoor flea market, but it may be the last time we go, as the offerings were very very boring! It used to feature lots of antiques dealers, but nowadays seems to have personal garage sale stuff, discounted stuff, lots of homemade bath products and endless piles of crocheted novelties. However, I did find a couple of things that can be used for minis.

Although the pictures aren't that great, the frames are very nice and in 1/12 scale; I'll fill them with my own paintings one of these days.

These rather thick little 1/12 scale containers will work well in prep board settings; I think the two-handled pot will work for something like baked beans, while the little pitcher might work for pancake batter. They were very inexpensive, and small porcelain items are hard to come by locally.

Wednesdays are still "Mini Days", and I hope to make grapes for the Autumn vignette tomorrow. And I hope the endless rain stops soon.....

The Autumn Vignette So Far....

 The vine has been re-leafed, and I do like this better. The apple basket has been aged (outside only, as it will be "filled"). At the outset of this project, I stated that I hoped to make as much as possible myself, mostly out of cardboard and the like, just to prove that anything can just about become something else. 

So far, the structure is 1/4" (1 cm) foam core, doubled for the floor. The wall and door are made of packaging cardboard over foam-core scraps; the window and door frame are more cardboard.  The apple basket is made from an old school binder divider and a bit of wire. The birdhouse is a shaped scrap of 1/2" square basswood, with a roof from a bit of moss ribbon. The vine leaves are painted paper, in 4 different sizes, each shaped individually. The window glass is a piece of packaging plastic, while the box of fertiliser  (I think!) in the window is a scrap of wood and a cut-out from a gardening magazine. The stone doorstep is a strip of builder's foam, while the grey basket is a painted plastic bottle cap. 

The tools and watering can are commercially made, from my stash. And the shingles are left-overs from a very old project, each shingle cut in half to look more to scale, while the door-handle is a bit of carved and painted wood. The weathered bench is a left-over kit from a course I taught pre-Covid,while the trunk of the vine is made of floral wire and floral tape. It still needs to be "planted" on the base.

I was able to find a very simple, warm brown wooden picture frame, which the box will be set into. At the moment, I'm working out how to make a woven basket from file folder cardboard, a bit of a challenge although I do think I have instructions somewhere in my (far too many) magazine stash. 

I'm still looking for beads for the grapes, but if I can't find the right colour this week, I'll make up a batch of polymer clay grape bunches to hang on the vine, with some tiny tendrils made from fuse wire wrapped over a sewing needle.

It's coming along! And the weather has cooled, although that may be temporary; we were in the tail end of tropical storm Debbie here. And much to my chagrin, the trees are beginning to change colour and the birds are flocking. Winter is coming but not for a couple of months, I hope!

Still Working Away on Things....

 Back from a short vacation by the sea, and mostly recovered from working at the Provincial Highland Games, I'm working at finishing things again. Today (Monday) is a holiday here, and as it is nice and cool for a change, I've been able to reach some progress on my various bits and pieces. First of all, I want to show you a photo that I took to help me make an espaliered tree or two for the eventual Apothecary Garden. This is from Kew Gardens, and will have to serve me in making a mini version, as it seems next to impossible to find the Dutch dolls' house version that prompted the idea of espaliered trees:

You'll likely have to enlarge this, as the trained branches of the trees are somewhat obscured by the brickwork. It will be an interesting challenge to make a "flat" tree in miniature, and it will likely have to be glued here and there to the eventual wall. The foreground planting looks like lavender or rosemary, both of which tend to be found in Apothecary gardens.

And yes, I've begun to re-leaf the grape vine; the humidity has slacked today, and the paper is taking the creases properly again! I'm using four different sizes of maple leaf punches to make the leaves, made from hand-painted papers with appropriate autumnal speckles on them. The vine is about half done, which means more punching is needed, as I've used up all the third size leaves punches.  The basket was started yesterday (Saturday), allowed to partially dry overnight, and had the last banding and the handles attached today. I have super glue on my left index finger....

The basket was made from old binder-divider cardboard, following a tutorial in the Nov. 2014 issue of Dolls House World. The wire handles were formed over a block of scrap wood, and that's where the super glue came in. I think it looks pretty good for a first effort, and "filled" with apples or the like, will make a nice addition to the vignette I'm working on.  It still needs aging, though!

On the needlework front, three of the rugs are "done" except for hemming and fringing; I'm waiting to do several at once, as soon as the rest are done. There seems to be an oriental theme here!

I did work on rugs on my little vacation, sitting on the rear veranda of my sister-in-law's house, which looks out over a lovely lake and tends to have a nice breeze going, as well. The rust/gold rug is a colonial style, but I misread the pattern and it will be a wee bit more colourful than planned; the pattern called for two rows gold and one rust rather than what I began to do. As the back is worked in a labour-intensive stitch (diagonal basket-weave), I didn't have the courage to pull things out yet again to do it according to instructions. The Bokhara-style rug is all half cross stitch, due to the dense pattern, and will need blocking as that stitch tends to pull needlework on the bias.

A close-up look at the leaves on the grape vine....

Well, back to work!