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!