Our Veteran Has Been Dressed

You can click on the photo for a larger view. He has one major problem, which is that his arms are too short for his body, which means that his coat sleeves have continued to be a pain in the neck. I've cut them back twice, and the arm with the cane still disappears in the sleeve!

He has a wig, his eyebrows have been made a bit more realistic with mixed flocking, and he has a military mustache to hide his smile. I think he looks rather wistful and serious now, a better face for a veteran revisiting an old battle site.

Although it is not that visible, on his blazer pocket he has a gold-colour badge; prior to WWII, armed forces insignia tended to be made of metal, rather than embroidered patches as are in use now. At this scale, the badge is representative only, but is made to look like the badge of a Province of New Brunswick, Canada battalion that fought in Flanders in WWI.

All that is left now is to finish the landscaping, and add in a few small details. I also made a very battered, worn, torn and stained knapsack, which will hang in the dugout; it was too damaged for the soldier to take back home....

Do check in on the Charminis blog; Marilyn will likely post photos of the dugout as it is now.

Well, We Are Further Ahead....

Although we didn't get our project completely finished today, we are well on the way to being done. The landscaping is forging ahead, the small pieces are ready to be placed, and the veteran is nearly ready to go.We have added a dead sapling to our setting to add some height.

We are getting together again on Wednesday, to plant the poppies. I hope to get our gentleman done for that date. We did meet with our historical advisor today, and have some more information for how to  make this project a distinctly local one. Our hope is to display it at a number of different venues, and then ultimately to donate it to a local group.

We are already thinking of our next project....

Rusty Barbed Wire!

"Nuff said! The pen is for size purposes. The wire is made from ancient beading wire or something, the spool it was on has lost its labels.

How to make it? Well, twist two pieces of fine wire together first of all. Then fold another piece of fine wire in half, and start wrapping it around the first piece of wire and cutting it off. Do this until you can do it with your eyes closed, every quarter inch or so. Go into town to buy super glue gel, because the bottle you had was borrowed and the borrower tossed it as it appeared to be dry, but neglected to inform you thereof ;o) Now drop a drop of glue gel on each little knot, dust with cinnamon, and go eat lunch and allow it to dry thoroughly.

Separate the little bits of wire you wrapped around, and trim to size. Dab bits of terra cotta paint here and there to simulate rust. Miniature barbed wire ready to go into the Remembrance Day project. We are working on finishing the landscaping tomorrow, but my veteran will have to wait another day or two for his blazer to be finished.

Our Scale Veteran Is Getting Dressed

We are using a donated china figure to populate our Remembrance Day Project, and I get to dress him up for the job

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He is wearing real wool flannel pants, made from a sample of men's wear fabric, and now has leather shoes, which allow him to stand up on his own, no stand needed. I am currently making his blazer; sewing in miniature is time-consuming, as I do whatever I can on the sewing machine.



I am using some wonderful navy blue Pima cotton, which looks and feels like real wool with the iron-on backing. The jacket is lined to avoid bulk; the rectangular thing is a standard Lego block for size comparison.



Jacket and lining sewn together. At this point, I have to do all the details like pockets and buttons and faux buttonholes, as once it is on him I can't manipulate this tiny garment.



Large pockets in place, the sleeves ready to attach once the shoulders are sewn. I still have to make the breast pocket, but need to go get fusible double-sided interfacing, as I appear to be out. My least favourite part is the collar; it goes on under the jacket and has to be hand-sewn in place. Also in the photo, his cane which will get a Fimo head, and a WWI British canteen, which still needs to be dirtied up. It is covered with a single check from a sample of khaki men's suiting fabric. The stopper for the canteen is a cardboard rivet thingy, filled with Crayola Model Magic, and a bit of jewelry chain holds it on the canteen. The stopper will be painted black tomorrow.

Friday's Accomplishments

Today was dedicated to working on some of the items needed for our group Remembrance Day project, so we can make up for our missed meetings, hopefully this coming Wednesday. That means I have a few days to work down my list.

The first thing today was to paint and age the chair, abandoned in the dug-out at the end of the war.



A dark green colour seemed like a good choice; the interior of the dug-out is fairly dark, with a lot of grays and browns, and hopefully this worn green farmhouse chair will add a small pop of colour. The chair was made by Louise, and I was given the finishing and aging - two things I really enjoy doing.

The next thing was to put some foliage on all those poppies that are going to be planted on the top of the dug-out. I had already made up about a hundred blooming poppies, along with some just opening buds and some closed buds. Wild poppies have very little foliage, and what they have is kind of ferny, for lack of a better word. I used a fern spray punch, then cut that up to be small enough for the poppies. And as poppies have long, thin bare stems below their blossoms, the foliage is down fairly low along the stems.



They still need to be sprayed to prevent fading, but as it is raining today and I hate to spray inside the house, that will be done the next sunny day. There is more foliage that can be added in once the flowers are placed; I find it easier to gauge where extra leaves are needed once the plants are in place.
I guess that will be Marilyn's job, as she is doing the grass for the landscaping....

That leaves the veteran's clothing and wig, and some small accessory items, which I hope will be done by our next get-together.

Flu Season and Other Stuff

We have now had to cancel something like 4 meetings, either due to illness or winter storms. I am still working, just missing my mini Wednesdays!

In place of miniatures, I am working on some of my other hobbies. We will get back to miniatures, especially the Remembrance Day Project, I promise! During the inevitable intervals, I am finishing projects in some of my other hobbies.

In the meantime, we have been enjoying daily visits from a wild turkey hen. We just hope she doesn't become a problem, like the ruffed grouse last year, who decided he owned our garden and we weren't allowed in. That bird was quite vicious, and smaller than a chicken. Have you even really looked at the size of the feet of a wild turkey? Or its beak? Or thought about how much those things weigh?
We still have mountains of snow that have to melt before we can go back to working our garden....

Not a Good Week

First of all, we are buried in snow; see photos below. I took them from my front steps this evening, to show the amount that we are dealing with right now. It is only the beginning of March, and we have at least six more weeks of winter to go. They are already indicating that we may have another record flood this year, based on the snow pack.




 Photo one is from the front door to the garage. Our apple trees are once again buried well above the trunks. Photo two is the drift pile in front of the kitchen window; this window is at my eye level when I work at the kitchen sink. To get into the house, we go up three steps. So, I estimate this pile is about a meter and half or higher. We had some very heavy winds for two days this past week, so there was a lot of drifting! Photo 3 is out to the road; we are running out of space to dump snow, and there is more coming tonight....



I turned in an odd way last Sunday, resulting in a serious back spasm. It is almost back to normal, but lengthy periods of standing are painful. So I didn't get as much done this week as I had hoped. Today, I did manage to stain the second floor of my steam punk loft project. As the wood used was very rough, there was a lot of hand sanding involved, and my back is complaining! The little chair is for the Remembrance Day project, it will be painted and then rubbed back for wear and aged and dirtied.
The only other thing I managed to finish is to paint a sheet of paper for the leaves for the poppies in the Remembrance Day project.

There is a real beauty to winter, but at this time of year there is also a desire for it to just go away, already!