Merry Christmas 2021

No, I did not get it finished! I have tried, but it is very difficult to find enough time for some of the very time-consuming tasks left to do. I have got the garland that will go around the front and sides of the market stall ready to install; that is one of the tasks, part of which included figuring out how best to attach the garland to the building, and yet allow it to be removed if necessary. 

It is my hope that the posts on the four corners will also be lit; I do have another string of lights for this purpose. However, first the posts have to be stained, and then I have to stick them in place and re-do the cobbles at their bases. They look rather tall right now, but they will go down into the base and then be about as high as the roof. 

I still have to come up with a name....

The shops open up again on Tuesday, but I think I'd better wait a day or two before going shopping for supplies: snow paint, masking tape, Christmas trees,. and matte outdoor varnish. With the supply difficulties the stores are experiencing, I will likely have to give several hours to this task.

The time-consuming task I'm currently working on is the installation of the rustic shingle roof; these are being cut, individually, from large dolls' house shingles that I had dyed in walnut stain some time ago. By varying the amount of time the shingles spent in the stain, I got a nice variety of colours. I can glue down three rows and then I have to let the glue dry, otherwise everything slips out of alignment on the roof. That has been, and continues to be, today's task. I was going to use a corrugated plastic roof sheet I picked up at least 20 years ago, but it was too short to fit....

I wish you and your loved ones a Very Merry Christmas, and I hope Santa brings you minis!

 

The Roof Is On....

 We are having a snow/rain/freezing rain storm today, so our weekly meeting took place over the internet. I've managed to fit and paint the roof, and to install the brackets that will hold the lights and the garland (I hope!).

I put together another Erzgebirgte bow as well, this time I tried a manger scene:

Yes, the baby Jesus is a little large, but so is the Christ Child in our antique German creche scene. I may give Joseph a staff, but will see how a section of fine antique brass wire might look. If you enlarge this photo, you will see that the glue on the "candles" is still wet....

There is a series of wire brackets all around the roof of the market stall; I hope to use these to string the evergreen/holly garland and the light string. I also want to experiment with poles on the corners, as mentioned in my previous post, and will try to string some lights there as well.

Obviously, the merchandise in the market stall will NOT be finished before Christmas; I have to go and stand in line in whatever weather presents itself tomorrow to get my Covid booster shot, and have no idea of how much actual time for minis I will have. We do what we must!

And the Cobbles Are In Place

The next step is to make the roof; I hope to fit it like a lid, with lighting and a garland around the edges. It needs to be removable as I will surely want to replace the contents as I learn new skills; it was pointed out to me when I first started working on miniature settings, that a setting is never truly finished....

I am pleased with the look of the stone paving; it will need a couple of coats of matte varnish, which I have to go out and buy as the two large bottles I bought years ago have now separated.  The front and back supports of the base  will go underneath, hopefully tomorrow, to make a space to hide the batteries for the Christmas lights. The edges will then be finished with an iron-on veneer banding.

I'm going to see if I want poles on the four corners, to string yet more lights around; I could perhaps use the posts themselves to display wreaths or similar decorations. I'll have to ponder that!

 

Cobbles Going In

 I decided to take the time to make my own, bread-loaf shaped cobbles for my Christmas Market Stall, and began yesterday. The first thing was to paint the mossy green pieces of mat board (mount board) a spotty gray;

The next step was to sponge paint on the gray base, using both a sea sponge and a cellulose kitchen sponge; I couldn't find my cosmetic sponge, which is usually the last step. I used two shades of darker gray, and white to do this.

And I have no idea why the photo is suddenly sideways! It looks oddly spotted, but the next step is to cut the card into approximately 1 by 2 cm long pieces. Once cut into rectangular shapes, the corners have to be nipped off to appear hand-hewn; this work of making cobbles was often the hard labour that prisoners had to work at!

The edges of  individual stones then have to coloured dark gray, which I did while watching TV and with a washable gray felt pen; I always get pen all over my fingers doing this!

The flash has not been terribly helpful today, but here are the stones cut from the first piece of painted mat board, glued into place. I have finished cutting the second piece of board, and will now colour in the edges, again while watching TV. That is a rather boring part of making these stones....

Cutting up the painted mat board means the colour areas get jumbled up enough that the finished stones appear to have been individually painted.

The bread-loaf shape of stone is one I remembered from my childhood; there were small, rounded stones about half the size of these, called "kinderkopjes" (children's heads), that are often laid in semi- circular patterns, as well as regular rows of them. That's how the market in my Dutch hometown, Maastricht, is laid out; however, I'm not sure whether that is traditional or whether it is modern, as a few years ago, when I visited, they were busy re-laying the cobbles in one of the main roads, and it was being done in semi-circles. I recall these rectangular stones being on some of the older, i.e. medieval, parts of the city. 

Once the stones are laid, I'll give them a few coats of matte outdoors varnish, and see if I need to fill in the gaps between them. Usually, these cobbles are laid in a deep bed of sand.

I really hope that I can have the outside of the Market Stall done for Christmas, as I can always fill in the merchandise later....

Wow! That's Tiny....

Offerings for today; a Christmas tomten and an Erzgebirchte bow ornament. The tomten was cut and sanded from a bit of left-over jumbo craft stick, while the bow ornament was made of scraps, beads, fancy toothpick tops, beads, manila file folder and white floral wire for the candles.

This one has been an experiment, and I would like to try a couple more. It's just that they are so very tiny!The angel has paper wings and a jewelry finding halo. The shepherd has a paper headdress, and a floral wire shepherd's crook. 

Up close it looks rather odd; however, from a bit of distance the shepherd's crook really does not appear all that large....And the photo is still out of focus, my camera batteries are dying. It is less than 3/4" or under 2 cm tall! On the shelf in the market stall it might look more convincing, I hope.

 

And A Couple More...

Two sets of porch Christmas decorations; the varnish on the square ones is still wet. Now I have to let that dry, and then I'll put a seal coat on the base, prior to painting that.

I did say in my previous post that I have a little more time now for minis!

 

Still Working Away, Albeit Slowly....

 The Christmas parcels for my children were sent off on Monday, which means I have time to devote to my other hobbies again. My mini friends and I did meet on Wednesday, and two of us are working at filling our Christmas market stalls. Our other mini friend is working on a secret project....

The local office supply store did some excellent copying for me, and the first result is these miniature Christmas plates. The printies came from 1 zu 12, the German magazine, from a market stall project by Belgian miniaturist Iris Arentz (Trezoortjes), who works extensively with paper and card. I am debating whether to cut the rims back a little, as the pressed card plate forms I purchased at Birmingham Miniatura years ago are a larger diameter than the printies. These plates will go at the back of the shelves in my market stall, and will add seasonal colour.

This is just part of the stock for the shop; most of it is finished, but some of the boxes still need filling. It is not easy finding decent supplies, as all the stores appear to be dealing with delayed delivery problems. There aren't enough truck drivers and dock workers to keep up, and the suppliers are also experiencing labour difficulties due to the pandemic.

There is a LOT of space on the shelves for me to fill! The boxes of Christmas baubles will go on the lower shelves, while the various decor items will get pride of place. More laser-cut items are being worked on, but I need fine green glitter for the little Christmas trees. I'm also working on some larger decor items, like Porch decorations; a trio of round dowel Santas are being painted, and a similar trio of square ones need a bit more work on the faces, then they can be stained a nice, warm light brown. These will stand outside the shop, for the delectation of potential customers at the miniature Christmas market.

Currently, I am debating on how to finish the base the stall will sit on; ideally, I'd like a cobblestone (printed) base, covered here and there in painted snow. And I still have to think of a catchy name for my little market stall.Marilyn is way ahead of that

Small Progress Report

 

I've been working, slowly, on creating some more stock for my Christmas stall. The tiny green Christmas trees are made from chenille sticks and glitter, while the brown and white wooden ones were inspired by a Scandinavian Christmas ornament site. The leaping deer, two different kinds, are inexpensive laser cut ornaments from the $store, painted white, mounted on bases, and then dressed up with micro-glitter in white. Some of these will go into the stall, while others will go into my shop in a box, for whenever we are able to have or visit miniature shows again....

There are also two kinds of tiny laser-cut Christmas trees that I will make up for the stall; I need to experiment with the green glitter I have and see if it is small enough!

It is slow going; I think I am worn out  (more than!) a little by the Covid closures. Our small mini group has missed  two Wednesday meetings due to Real Life, but we were able to get together today. It is so helpful, tired of the restrictions as we are, to be able to meet up in person. We hope to work together again next week.

Lots of Boxes and Beads!

We were able to get together yesterday afternoon, and I spent it making boxes, and then today I made more boxes. I also picked up some $ store beads that are very attractive for making more Christmas balls from.

My workspace is shrinking! That, I expect, is something most of us who do miniatures are very familiar with, indeed. I was able to access a lot of excellent printies for boxes, thanks to Amberatti.blogspot a number of years ago. They were professionally printed on photo paper, and I really like the effect. Not cut out yet from that sheet are tinsel, angel hair, snow, and lightbulb boxes, so I have a few more (!) boxes to work on over the weekend.

The little market stall now has shelves inside, as well as a counter, cut down from vintage wooden venetian blind slats; they are sort of pre-aged, and I love the golden brown colour, which will work beautifully with my planned colour scheme. More boxes on the shelves, but these need their dividers as well as the decorations to go inside them. At this point, the plan is that this front part of the stall will be removable, held in place with some tiny, powerful rare earth magnets, to allow access to the interior. The roof will also lift off. However, as we all know, plans are known to change....

I hope there will be lights! Once a week I check the Christmas supplies already appearing in our $ stores; the current crop of LED lights run off batteries, but I'm hoping that I can find some tiny lights that operate with coin batteries, as they take up minimal space.

I also plan to (gasp!) glue down all the items "available" in this shop! Those of you who have been visiting the blog for some years will recall that I don't usually glue stuff down. But these bits are so tiny that, should the cat walk by the finished stall, everything is likely to fall off the shelves.

 

A Few Things for the Christmas Stall

It's not all that much, but I did make a few little things yesterday afternoon during our mini get-together; a crate of pine cones, and one of moss balls, as well as some tinsel packages. It is slow going; however, the shops here are started to sell Christmas items, which means I have to go into town at least once a week to see what I can use of the new arrivals in making minis. I need to go down the trail behind my house and pick some more alder cones.

Today I picked up another box of laser-cut mini ornaments. I already have one, but there were a lot of small pieces that can be used in miniature, as standing decor items. Also, Louise had pointed out to me a set of three very fine bead chains, that will fit very nicely on a miniature Christmas wreath or garland. A few more cut-outs are waiting to be assembled, as well as some tiny wooden and beaded figurines in the making.

And what is this, you might wonder? I had shown Marilyn a companion piece to the wooden shoe workshop, a candle workshop from the same historical era. The workshops are two of a series in the Dutch magazine, Poppenhuizen en Miniaturen, that ran in 1999. I have only two of these, the klompenmakerij and the candle factory. They were all designed to fit into the same basic room box, just individually designed; the very first one was a school. 

This is a table that held the dipped, paired candles to allow them to harden. It is in a new state, as I would likely age the piece when (or if!) I get an opportunity to build that room box as well. I had another birthday this week, and this is my birthday gift from Marilyn. The rods are removable, and fit across the beams which are also removable. (The candle factory photo in the magazine is very dark and dreary-looking, as it likely would have been.) The tray is also loose. But I MUST finish the many projects I currently have on the go first!

The floor of the market stall has been painted; beige with cream and pale green spatters. The shelves have been cut, and will soon be installed, but I need the Carpenter-in-Chief's assistance with the shelves and screwing the MDF building together. In the meantime, I can make shop stock.

 

There's a Lot of Stuff to Finish....

 

The fourth Serendipity rug is finished; I think it has something of a Victorian air, perhaps due to its colours.

Fiddly, but I've been saving a printie of these boxes for years; they are from the December 1996 issue of Nutshell News, and I think I need two more copies. They're fiddly, but if you follow the instructions carefully (!), they go together quite well. I need more small beads for ornaments....

The Dutch door is now glued into the back wall of the wooden shoe workshop; although it won't really show, I needed to fix it securely in order to prevent it swinging open (and breaking off) if the workshop is ever displayed. (I'm feeling a "bit" worried that there will ever be shows again.)

And a few "fancy" tree ornaments, which I hope to display on a hanging rack on the inside of the door to the Christmas market stall. I have still to design a sensible rack, and many more ornaments need to be made. I wonder where I can find bags of mixed beads? This may be a chance to roam around a few second-hand shops, although I am worried about getting Covid; I'm due for a booster, but they are currently only giving booster to seniors in nursing home settings, and to people with underlying conditions. And winter is coming....

The Christmas Market Stall Has Doors

The doors are Faux, as access will have to be through the front opening and the roof, which has to be removable.

Inside and out. Today meant a lot of waiting for both paint and glue to dry, so this is about all the progress there is.

The wooden shoe factory is in the process of having the door framed in on the back, and a stoop installed there. Again, waiting for glue to dry....

 

Christmas Market Stall, Continued

This is the front portion of the Christmas market stall I began a couple of weeks ago. I got caught up in Real Life things, and haven't had much of a chance to work further on it.

The stall will sell Christmas decorations, of all kinds, many for dressing Christmas trees. The colour scheme is cream and pale green, with (hopefully!) gold accents. Today I cut out and decoupaged some of the "paintings" on the front of the stall; the printies came from the January 2012 issue of Dolls House Nederland. The take-off for the design of the stall came from my memories of old carousels, which are always beautifully pastel in colour and very vividly accented. The space between the two round appliques are going to have the shop name, once I think of the perfect one....

There is almost another Serendipity rug finished, this one in reds and greys, accented with black. A few other items for the Christmas stall are in various stages of work, and I hope to get some of these ready to show on the blog; we are once again in our area in a Covid lock-down, which is sitting badly with a lot of people (all those, like me, fully vaccinated!), who are not even allowed to have family to share our Canadian Thanksgiving dinner on Monday. My family lives too far away to visit, but there are a lot of unhappy New Brunswickers around right now. The news this morning, in the paper, is that we are likely looking at another Red Level, i.e. complete lock-down, very soon unless the numbers of Covid cases go down drastically.

The supermarkets are reporting that the sale of small turkeys is very high, while the larger turkeys are not being sold. The carpenter-in-chief and I are sharing a chicken....

 

Christmas Market Stall Is Begun

 Our small FAME mini group is going to do a group project over the next few weeks, as each of us is going to create a Christmas Market Stall, in time to display for the upcoming holiday season. Marilyn cut out the carcass of the stalls for us, and it will be interesting to see what interpretations we come up with.

Colour scheme is cream on the inside, and for the shelves, with a pale green for the outside, the same colour used some years ago for my Christmas room box. I've been checking out ideas on the internet, and have come up with a sketch for my stall. The roof will be either corrugated or shingled, with snow on it, of course. There are going to be Christmas lights around the roof line, as well as an evergreen swag. The stall is intended to have a fabric awning, and a faux "metal" roll-up front opening. Across the front will be a natural wood shelf, for display and commerce. The door into the stall will be suggested, i.e. it will not actually open. There will be a sidewalk with a couple of extra display surfaces, and snow and icicles, of course!

I've been collecting items for the stall for some years now, and this rather poor photo shows a bunch of them. Some are components to make things, but there are two wooden bow-type wooden decorations as well as a very tiny shaved wooden tree, which I bought in The Netherlands years ago for this stall, at the Arnhem show. It takes me time to actually make things, sometimes....

A number of these items will require painting, as the current paint job is a bit slapdash. There are several sets of ornaments, purchased and gifts, that require display boxes. I saved foil wrappers from Christmas chocolates, years ago, which will be rolled and packaged as gift wrap for sale.

This stall sells Christmas decor items, and I had made some floral and candle arrangements for the stall last year. I need to decide how wide and tall my shelves will be, hence everything being pulled out. Now I get to go back through my large collection of magazines, and make some of the perfect items to go into the shop that I've been considering for years.

 We hope to get together to work on them this coming week, but may have to do it by Skype rather than in person, as Covid is rearing its ugly head again in our area. We're back to limited gatherings and masks being required indoors.

This should be another fun project, small enough to require only a reasonable amount of time -- I hope! 

Good Grief!

 I had my appointment with the eye specialist this afternoon, and the eye clinic at the hospital the surgery was going to happen at is now closed, and the specialist (and all her staff) are now unemployed.

That means I will have to start over with another specialist, and that means lots of time, probably, will pass. So I'm going to finish that rug using a 3X magnifier lens where necessary, and then I will take on some project or other that doesn't need really fine, up-close vision. Ah, cataracts, the bane of aging eyes!

I was sent home with some complimentary bottles of eye drops, and my file so far....

Ideas and a Progress Report

 Yes, I am still working on the little oriental carpet, in fact, I worked on it Wednesday afternoon while enjoying the company of my fellow miniaturists, Louise and Marilyn. The outer narrow border and its counterpart around the central portion only need the little crosses filled in, and the deep red centre is also all but filled in.

I was able to get out for a trip to the sea on Tuesday, as well as get a behind-the-scenes look at a small, local, very well done, museum. To get behind the barriers and be allowed to open the storage areas is definitely a big plus of my volunteer job.

As my eyes are still in the troublesome stage (doctor's visit in 10 days), I'm not able to do a great deal of close-up work. However, I did pull out two FAME kits, prepared by Marilyn, and did a dry-fit.

This is the carcass of a market stall, minus some details, which I hope to turn into a decorative Christmas market stall. We still hope to have an opportunity to display our creations in early December, but don't as yet know that it will actually happen. All three of us who meet up have Christmas minis, so the suggestion was we would do a display of seasonal items. This is, to me, a good excuse to give some time to this project, for which I've accumulated items for some years. Of course, there is always room for more, and I hope to be able to get some of the marvelous wooden minis being produced in Europe these days.

This is a mirror image of my flower shop, Floriana. The intention is to make this one a small pastry and coffee shop, with perhaps a couple of 2-person cafe tables outside it. As this project needs more time, (I haven't actually made any of the items I want to put in it!), it will have to go on the wait list for now, but dry-fitting it like this is intended to get my imagination working. I can take mental and written notes, and check out useful tutorials on-line and in magazines, which will speed up the actual building process when that time comes.

The trees are definitely turning orange and red, earlier than usual, probably due to the inordinate amount of rain we've had here this year. If only we could have shipped some it out west; my children and their spouses have been living in smoky forest fire conditions for weeks. There is a serious drought out there, which is very odd as usually, British Columbia was our wettest province! Every plant in our garden is much taller than in previous years, and most of the apples on our front-garden orchard are dropping well before they're truly ripe. As a result, dishes made with apples have featured regularly in our menu. For the two of us, we have half a dozen jars of apple butter....But, we've discovered that warmed apple butter is very good on vanilla ice cream!

A Little More Progress

I can't get this photo to flip right side up, so you get to see it vertically! It's been a busy few days, with a couple of doctor's appointments moved up due to other people's cancellations; we try to take advantage of those whenever possible, to cut wait times, but it does cut into my working time! My newest doctor practices in a small town an hour's drive up the Trans Canada Highway from home. I took advantage of that yesterday, driving up on the TCH but coming home via the old highway on the opposite side of the river; I saw an otter at one point! I've never seen a wild otter, and I've been around for quite a few years now.

My eyes have been checked, I have had the preliminaries done for the eye specialist, now it is a three week wait until I get the first consult. In the meantime, I am doing anything requiring the use of my eyes in small doses, and I'm avoiding the really hard work in the corners of the rug until I know what is going on with my eyes.

As I am an avid reader, I'm finding the blurry vision and recurring small headaches a pain (that's a kind of joke!), but I am hoping all will go well; aging does weird things, I'm discovering....

We missed our group (electronic) mini session today, but the Carpenter-in-Chief and I took advantage of the lovely weather earlier this afternoon to take a walk in the nature park not far from our house. It was a perfect temperature for a walk in the woods. Lots of colourful toadstools and fungi, Lots of dogs as there is an off-leash dog-walking trail, as well as a tree I didn't recognize, so I get to do a little research. Our days have been warm, with cool nights, which means that soon the deciduous trees will be turning vivid orange, red and gold. We have until about the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend before all the leaves suddenly drop, and then we await winter. It is supposed to be a wet, stormy one!

 

Small Progress Report

 It's been a somewhat crazy week, which galloped by so fast that I almost missed it! Several days of very hot humid weather followed by several days of rain; it is raining today, and cool enough for jeans and a long-sleeve T-shirt. My older daughter in Northern Alberta province has already had a frost warning....

I am very fond of my mountain ash tree, grown from a $19 sapling more than twenty years ago. However, the poor things is half dry and brown. As we couldn't find any insect damage, we called in an arborist. He didn't know what it was either, but took photos to put on an arborist website; we got the word yesterday, our poor tree is suffering from a bacterial infection, called fire blight. I wondered if we should consider cutting it down, but the arborist recommended letting it leaf out next spring, to see if the infection was still present. We could make an informed decision then.

After I got the tree, we discovered several very young volunteer mountain ash trees had grown up in various parts of the garden, parts of which we keep tidy but essentially wild. I hope they don't get sick either. Our area is currently dealing with an outbreak of emerald ash borer, an insect that eats at the tree inside the bark; the trees inevitably die. Also in the garden are three mature black ash trees, much treasured by our First Nations' people, as they use this wood to make their traditional ash splint baskets.

We also have to keep an eye on those trees, as they are quite valuable when mature....

The Persian rug has filled out a little; I find I can do the solid or outline areas, and the borders are do-able for me as well, despite the seriously blurry vision. However, the detailed corner sections, while roughed in, will have to wait until I have a diagnosis of what is bothering my aging eyes, as the colours on the graph I'm following blend into each other, creating colour blocks that are just not there.

On the stair situation in the wooden shoe factory, I am going to sort out how big a battery pack I will need to run about five warm LED lights; if it is compact, like a coin battery, I can leave a small section of the stairs removable, for battery replacement purposes. However, if I need a bunch of AA batteries, with their very limited working time, I will have to come up with something else. The lights in my Tudor house are run on a battery pack of 4 or more A A batteries (seven grain of rice bulbs), which will not even manage the lighting for one day of display. I really don't want to become dependent on plugging into the wall at shows, etc., as display areas with electricity are usually scarce and rather more expensive, plus you have to navigate wires etc. I also find the weight of either battery packs or transformer units tends to break the very fine wiring used for dolls' houses.

I do wish I was more comfortable with electricity!

Well-Worn Stairs

The stairs are painted and distressed; for the distressing, I used a tack hammer, a pointy rock from the patio, a sponge sander, emery board, and a small screwdriver, with occasional applications of the back edge of my Xacto knife.

Our local Michaels is now carrying a limited supply of MidWest basswood, and although they didn't have the thickness my project called for, the sander belonging to the Carpenter-in-Chief thinned the pieces just right to make the last five stair treads. I hope the store carries more of this product, as it is way better than the stuff they carried the past several years!

We are still scratching our heads as to how to have a part of the steps open, in order to replace batteries on the eventual lighting, the wires etc. of which I'd really like to hide there. There is a real dearth of miniature, vintage industrial lighting fixtures available, which means I'll have to create my own from scratch. I need four hanging lights, and one wall sconce in a cage for the stairway wall. I also have no idea how many LED lights can run off a coin battery, nor how long such a battery would last with five LED bulbs on it.

Now the risers and treads need a varnish coat, and once that is dry, an application of antiquing gel to bring out the dents and scratches. Once the stairs are glued in place, I can dirty up the wall and the corners to look well used, and perhaps not all that carefully cleaned....

 

Miniature Embroidery Things to Think About

I thought it might be interesting to do just a short post about miniature embroidery. I've always enjoyed embroidery, and when I began to make miniatures, a quarter century ago now, naturally I wanted to use this craft in my miniature settings also. I learned to do needlepoint in Grade 2, at an all-girls' school in The Netherlands taught by nuns. We began knitting in Grade 1, making underwear and then a dress for our dolls, and the next year embroidery was introduced.

The three little Serendipity rugs or mats I made recently were made without a pattern, i.e. I just used left-over threads and created the "design" as I went along. This is a rapid way of making miniature mats, rugs or carpets. However, working a complex design from a pattern is a whole another story!

This is a miniature version of an actual Persian carpet, from the Mazlaghan region, near the city of Hamadan in western Iran. It is a twentieth century design, so not antique. I've always loved the   colours in this rug, which you also see in the RAF tartan; light slate blue, dark red, light grey and navy blue, with small accents of a mid-brown colour. The pattern comes from a book by Meik and Ian McNaughton, entitled Making Miniature Oriental Rugs & Carpets (Guild of Master Craftsman Publication Ltd. in 1998.)

I began this rug on Friday; it is now early Sunday evening, and as you can see, I haven't really got a lot done. The rug will measure 6 1/4 x 4" (162 x 99 mm) when finished, worked with two strands of cotton floss on 24 ct. canvas, that is, 676 sts per square inch. And I learned something when I started this; the graph in the book is not that large, and I was seeing double; therefore, I decided to head into town on Saturday to get an enlarged photocopy made. However, I am still seeing double.

I  need to get new glasses, again; I went from being nearsighted, a couple of years ago, to becoming far-sighted, but now my prescription is not working. I realize that print has become blurry, as has the type  on the computer. So tomorrow I'll make an appointment with my optometrist. In the meantime, I can work for an hour or so before the blurriness gets bad. As I love this little rug, I will get it finished!

Until I get the wood for the stairs in my wooden shoe factory, that project is at a temporary stand-still; there was none in the right size to be had in town, but I will try again this coming week. 

Three Little Serendipity Rugs or Mats

So far, I have completed three small rugs using scraps of needlepoint canvas (24ct) and loose and odd threads drawn from a left-overs pile in my embroidery supplies.

The first one is varieties of browns, creams and greys accented with assorted rust shades. It has a very mid-century modern feel to it, I think. Some of the stripes were worked with a blended needle, i.e. two strands of different colours. If you choose closely related colours, the end result can appear to be a single colour; however, if you use contrasting colours, the effect is that of tweed.

The middle one I call Denim Blues; that was the starting point, and is also a little like a rag mat we have in our powder room. It has accents of thin red stripes on various blues and greys. The size of this one would make it work nicely in many eras, from an updated bath to a servant's bedroom.

The far one is Graphic Greens, and is the most planned of the three. I pulled out many shades of green for this one, then bordered each one with a deep, nearly black green. It is definitely a modern rug.

The problem is, of course, that in my part of the world most people live and breathe Victorian miniatures, so finding a buyer for these in my small circle of miniaturists is likely going to be very difficult indeed!

Most of my stairs for the wooden shoe workshop are ready to attach, but I am trying to come up with a way to make a section of them removable. That would allow me to hide the lighting batteries and wires very neatly, and allow good access to them when the batteries need replacing. I chose a dark red-brown colour to paint the stairs, the colour I remember our stairs in Maastricht being; they dated to before WWI, thus fitting neatly into the period of my workshop.

 

The Next Big Step....

 ....involves the staircase. 

I had ordered the wood for this months ago, during the height of the pandemic, and when it arrived one of the pieces I needed was very badly warped, as well as stained. This happened at the factory, as the package itself was dry and unstained. While I was out this morning, the Carpenter-in-Chief contacted the manufacturer, with a photo, and new wood is on the way to replace the damaged piece. At least, I can begin sanding, painting, aging and distressing the pieces I do have.

When we started this project, the C-in-C wanted to know where the heck this stairway was going, did I really need it? Well, it goes to an imaginary second story/attic, so I will attempt to paint the illusion of a dark opening in the "ceiling", to suggest that. After all, I need that staircase to hide the privy under, and perhaps also the eventual electrics!

So, as those among you who do embroidery for their dolls' houses know, you end up with an awful lot of tiny pieces of canvas. Along with those, I have a massive lifetime collection of embroidery floss. I like to think of this as a Serendipity project; making something from left-overs, essentially. The tangle of floss represents left-overs from kits, threads I can no longer match to their skeins, floss my children used when they wanted to learn embroidery, and so forth. And the first result is the "modern" rug in the centre. This one is done, ready to have the hems turned. It was worked on 24ct canvas, with 2 strands of floss; some of the stripes have two colours in the needle, which gives a subtle, tweed effect.

A small project like this is handy to carry around. Basically, I decide on a colour scheme, pull all the various bits of those colours from the tangle, and stitch away. The next one is intended to be a rag rug, the sort you use in front of the kitchen sink (or in the bedrooms of your servants!), in blues and greys.

This one, in brown tones, may fit into my Trash-to-Treasure Loft Project, as it pulls from the natural shades in that little vignette. But if we ever get back to having shows again, I may also try to sell it.

Tomorrow I begin sanding the treads and risers of my staircase....

The Last Straw....

 ....went in this afternoon and the roof is now fully "reeded".

The slot for the half wall fits perfectly, and now all that has to happen is for the beam to be glued into place. (I held it in place with a finger for the photo below.)

I had to bend down at a very odd angle to take this photo of the reeded roof! Anyone who wants to see it when the room box is completed will have to be able to bend, or use a mirror. It seems a little silly to do all this work, when it will be pretty much invisible. However, like the fully beamed ceilings in my Tudor Merchant's house, I will know that I actually made the ceilings look real!

There is very little left over from the corn whisk that provided the reeds. I was a little concerned that there wouldn't be enough pre-cut reeds to finish the last row. The Carpenter-in-Chief actually went to his workshop and brought out the corn whisk he inherited from his father's workshop - it comes with a holder for the wall - and said if I needed it, I could have a few pieces of his corn whisk, but that he didn't want me to completely cut it up....

Fortunately, it was not necessary to cut anything out of his whisk, but it was a very kind offer!

Next up, the stairs and the lighting. I will need help with both of those!

Three Rows Done, and a Lucky Thought....

Three of the rows are done, only five more to go! To the left of the pencil is a (difficult to see) rectangle drawn on the yellow strip. At some point last night I woke up, and suddenly remembered that there was a wall somewhere in there; did the reeds have to be interrupted? So I taped the ceiling to the room box and realized, yes indeed, there is the half-width wall between the toilet/sink corridor and the workshop proper. I had taken it out a week or more ago....

Whew! Glad that popped into my brain before I had to cut a section of reeds out. I'll have to cut the broom straw to size there, as I'll need to mask the area of the wall with a scrap piece of wood. It will be fiddly, for sure. However, having gone this far, I may as well continue on, right?

 

There's Glue Everywhere!

Those of who who work with tacky glues know that that stuff gets everywhere! I decided to keep a damp sponge handy while gluing the first row of "straw" down onto my roof. As you can see, you can only work a very small section at a time - the area with the white glue - and you have to hold it down as you wait for the glue to work. To speed things up, I decided to use the extra thick, extra quick stuff.

Yes, it works, but you also glue your fingers to the straw, very quickly. So then you wash them on your sponge, and you go back to holding on to your straw. As the broom straw is NOT straight or flat, it tends to want to move and/or stick to itself as you manoeuvre it into place, which is apparently easier when being manipulated by damp fingers....

I will try to do one row a day, at least! Once the stuff is really dry, I can trim it to fit the beam, using a very sharp scalpel blade to get a clean cut. Then it is on to fitting the next beam, trimming if necessary where it sits on the slanted beam, and gluing it into place. It needs an hour or more to really dry well.

This will obviously take a while, but I am determined!

 

Preparing the Beamed Ceiling

The first thing you have to do to prepare a beamed, reeded ceiling is to mark on your ceiling plate where the beams are intended to go. The Carpenter-in-Chief undertook to do this for me this morning, as I am very straight-line challenged.

Then you tape off the areas where the beams are going to go, and put a seal coat on those sections. I am "thrifty", so re-used the same pieces of masking tape for the whole thing. Well, I'll admit it, I am very low on masking tape, and we have had a severe thunderstorm warning, which means I do not want to make the drive into town! As my room box carcass is MDF, a seal coat is needed as that stuff just drinks the paint.

That done, you proceed to put ochre paint in the areas where the reeds (corn broom cuttings) will go, and the area above the toilet and the stairs in white. The painted areas have to dry before you can do the next sections of tape. It all takes time....

Once all the sections are painted, I can glue down the first beam; this will be under the piece of masking tape, next to the right-hand wall of the room-box. And once that beam is securely glued, I begin to glue on the pre-cut pieces of broom corn. Then the reeds are trimmed to fit, and the next beam is glued in place, and the whole process starts over again, for nine beams and eight areas of reed "thatch".

I will just go ahead and work away, then. 

 

Some Further Progress, But No Saws Yet...

Marilyn at Charminis and I did have a virtual meeting yesterday, and I did get some prep work done for the wooden shoe factory. As the saws are still in the Research & Development phase - I can't mimic the teeth of the saws well enough to my taste - I did some boring but necessary work towards the roof for the workshop.

The beams at the right had to be notched, individually, at the far end in order to fit into the angle of the beams on the slanted roof section, a job which required a saw, a sharp knife, a file, sandpaper and a fair bit of patience as well as trepidation, as I was cutting along the narrow end of an angle and worried about breaking the thin part of the angle off. But it is done,they fit, and they are stained and numbered and ready to install.

The stumpy thing with the yellow end is what is left of the corn whisk broom that I have been dismantling  to make the reeds for the roof; they are all cut into 2" (5 cm) sections ready to be glued between the roof beams.

That is a job which should take a while, and hopefully I will be able to come up with a method of making saws that I can live with! One has teeth on both edges, while the other is a large curved saw, with teeth along the curves. 

 

Catching Up

 Nothing to show today; it had been at least three weeks since our mini group got together, as Real Life caught up with all three of us. We finally met this past Wednesday. We are all rather pandemic-weary, just want to go back to normal social interactions!

Our house and contents are 27 or so years old, and the past few weeks we have had a number of small messes to deal with. Our refrigerator died in the middle of a serious heat-wave; who knew that you could no longer buy a fridge and get it the same or the next day? We spent an anxious Friday visiting every appliance store in our small city, and were quoted anywhere from three days to two weeks for delivery. At last we found a store that had a fridge in stock, and that agreed to deliver it, even though it was past hours and on a weekend. Thank heavens! It's not the fridge we would have chosen if we had had the time, but we can live with it.

The heat-wave left as abruptly as it came; one morning we woke up to find that our heating had come on automatically. We usually set this at 15C (about 60F) in the summer, and that night the temperatures went to 11C, in July! Two cork floors needed repairs; this is a noisy job. Then a toilet needed to be replaced. We hope all will be quiet for a while now. We also got our second Covid shots, but are now waiting to see if will indeed need a third in the autumn.

I've been trying to make two saws for the wooden shoe factory; the two I made during our meeting this past week are pretty good, but I'm not really satisfied with them. Therefore, I will continue to experiment.

Now, once I finish knitting the newest pair of socks, I can get back to minis!

More Progress on the Wooden Shoe Factory

The interior windows are in; I was able to use my circle cutter to make the missing window glass up, although I will admit it took 3 tries to get it right. The homemade window glass is in the hallway window, but it is indistinguishable from the rest!  However, confession time, I pushed it too hard into the frame and, you guessed it, wrecked the frame. But, I (fairly calmly) glued the broken wooden half-circle trim back together, let it dry, and then replaced each of the three glazing bars, one at a time, with lots of drying time in between.

There are a couple of new items; the carving brake (I don't know what to call it, it is the workbench thing the wooden shoes in the making are clamped into) is done except for a long, thin knife that I have to figure out how to create. The knife is looped into an eye that allows it to lift and swivel. I think it is a kind of shaving knife to shape the surface of the shoes.

Yes, I carved those shoes, they are rough because they are in the process of being made. (They're also the first attempt ever by me to carve wooden shoes!) Also in the workshop now is the large chopping block; as the wood was cut this spring (apple, I think), it is quite "juicy" and usually sits on top of several layers of paper towel in the hope of drawing the juice out. It smells nice, though!

Marilyn gave me the dark blue enamel coffee pot, and next to it on the hot plate is a fat little tea kettle. A  bottle of milk stands ready. Still to come are sugar, mugs, and packages of tea and coffee. The gas tank has a label, made from a chain link with a red-painted centre. Next to the table and stove is a wood box.

Now I have to figure out how to make a large two-man saw with a curved toothed edge; my thin printing plate metal won't be strong enough for this, so I may have to cut it from a sheet of thin aluminum. With scissors. Which I use left-handed even though they are right-handed scissors. And I will need to file the teeth.....

A miniaturist's work is never-ending and always challenging!

 

I Had to See What It Would Look Like

Not much time to work on minis today, but I did put nails into the walls to hang up some of the tools; I just had to see what it might eventually look like....

 

Doors and Windows Fit! Finally...

It took a whole day, but the door finally fits as it is supposed to. We still can't figure out what the problem was, aside from the paper clay that wrapped the sides of the buttresses, but even with that gone, the door would only go in on a slant, top to bottom. The sides of the door were shaved just a little, but the threshold kept moving, making it near impossible to make the thing go into the prepared opening in a straight, proper manner. Then it suddenly fit....

The door will be framed on the back of the room box with plain painted boards, as that side is not likely to be visible. I hope that the door will stay closed when the box is picked up, and if not, I'll have to fix a barrier across the back. The last thing I want is for the door to break if I ever get to display at a show again.

The window "glass" is still missing, so I'm going to try to cut a new one from plexiglass, using a circle cutter I acquired years ago, primarily for cardboard. I'm hoping that scoring the half circle will make it possible to knock the half-round window pane out with a  minimum of trouble. The windows all have arches for the back side, although another one has snapped; that will be glued up overnight. They tend to break at the base of the arch, on the grain of the wood.

That blank wall on the left is crying for some of the tools to be hung up; perhaps I'll hammer in some tiny nails tomorrow. I say hammer in, but in fact I drill the holes and then glue the nails in with a tacky glue/super glue double dip. The ones I put in months ago have stayed put so far.