Confession Is Good for the Soul, They Say....

It's been quite a while since I posted anything, but I haven't been doing nothing, just nothing in the way of miniatures. It has been quite clear for a while that I have too many hobbies; besides miniatures, I enjoy embroidery, knitting, quilting and small-scale sewing projects. But all these hobbies take up space.


I do have a dedicated workroom space, that was built into our house. It holds my sewing table and equipment, but I share it with my daughter who is a costume designer. When she has a commission, I tend to spread out to other areas of the house.

This is my dedicated "sewing" room, which is also supposed to house other hobbies. However, space is at a premium here, too much fabric for me to feel comfortable working with saws, glue and paint. This room is where I sew, keep all my how-to books, and most of my fabric supply. To the left of the chair, not shown in this photo, is a 6 ft tall bookcase, which has half of its shelves dedicated to housing my smaller miniatures; the rest of the shelves hold magazines and baskets with partially completed fabric-related projects. One of my current make-space projects is to cut my fabric scraps into standard sizes, so they will take up less space and be more easily available. That has been one of my non-mini projects this month, along with cutting some pieces for a tote bag, and the pile of stuff in the centre is for a quilt carrying bag, yet to be made, of course.

This is my secondary work space, the place where I tend to do all the messy work of sawing, painting, sanding, gluing and the like. It has a lovely view out the window; currently it is all snow....
This is my old dining room table, from my early twenties, hidden under a plastic tablecloth and right now, absolutely cluttered with stuff that needs sorting out. The boxes at the left belong to my daughter and contain some of her costume-making supplies. The doll hanging above the table is an old east Indian marionette; two-faced, with an elegant two-tone costume and a rather scary mask face.
There are also two old Indonesian stick puppets living elsewhere in this space, which is intended to be a family room.... Beyond the left side of the photo is our television viewing area. Upstairs, where it is quiet, is intended for reading and listening to music. Our house is built into a hill, which means that our "basement" is actually mostly very useful living space. Just beyond the paint tower, is a double door to the downstairs patio. (It is, of course, buried under snow right now!)

This is the tertiary work area, just to the right of the computer desk. It is an unfinished built-in desk, ideal for holding works in progress and assorted games, etc. The desk is unfinished because the heavy oak desk top insists on warping, so it is forever being straightened. The thing under the picture is a piece of armour - I did mention my daughter is a costume designer, and that is the edge of her sewing dummy on the right of the photo. My book vignette is there, along with my Japanese vignette, and of course the two halves of my Tudor apothecary - the outside is finished, I just need to furnish it! It seems that whenever a horizontal surface appears, it doesn't take long for it to be filled up...


I must confess that I have yet a fourth work area; whenever I work with polymer clay, I do it at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, as it is handy to the stove and the sink. But when I am done with the thing I am working on, all the boxes and tools go right back into basement storage. I have one short wall and part of a longer wall there to keep all my mini bits and pieces.


And I further confess that I lost my camera for several weeks; I found it today, under an old hope chest in my bedroom. Guess I couldn't find it because I didn't look in the right places.


My soul does feel a little bit lighter! Bear with me, I have to tidy and sort some more before I can allow myself to get back into creating more miniature havoc. Oh, further confession, when I do cross-stitch embroidery, I do it upstairs in the living room, so I guess there is also a fifth work area....