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!