Hello Again, I Think I'm Back....

First of all, Happy 2019 to all of you who stuck with me during my very long absence. Life kind of caught up on us this autumn, but I do believe I am ready to go on with miniatures and the blog again. My youngest daughter has moved permanently to western Canada, like so many young, well educated New Brunswick young people they have to leave for work opportunities. All three of my children now live at the feet of the Rocky Mountains, more or less, while we are far, far away close to the Atlantic Ocean. We can actually travel faster and cheaper to Europe than we can to visit our children in our own country!

Christmas did  bring me a few minis, a jug from my youngest daughter, and a new saw blade from the Carpenter-in-Chief, the third in my mini career. I wear them out....



We are in the middle of a blizzard/snowstorm - what else is new?

I haven't stopped working on minis, there just is not, as yet, anything finished to show. Today, I began making sandbags for a group project, and learned something about tea dyeing - you need to put the objects being dyed right side out in the tea dye!



I put them in inside out, then baked them at 260 degrees for 20 mins, and left them in the warm oven for another 20. Result, lovely dark, dirty sandbag covers. Then I turned them right side out:



They are back in the tea dye, a new, stronger batch as I need them to be quite dirty. This is perhaps a quarter of the bags we will likely need, but doing them in smaller batches makes the task less daunting. We are using recycled fitting muslins left behind by my designer daughter.

Now I have to go and find wood for a beaten-up, old farmhouse table top.