Oh Boy!

 My house looks like a disaster area, as my daughter has used her last day with us here to go through all the boxes that need to move to the other side of the country. In the process, we discovered that two large portfolios of art work were totally destroyed by mould; somehow, they got wet and then the fungus began to grow. It's kind of heart-breaking to see all those sketches, drawings and paintings end up in a bonfire.

We have NOT had time to go over the camera, so the Carpenter-in-Chief will try, once again, to help me figure out how to move photos to the blog. Our daughter's flight leaves at 5:45 tomorrow morning, which means having to be at the airport at 4:45, and it is at least a half hour's drive. I will be more than just slightly worn out tomorrow, and will have to make do with perhaps three hours of sleep, as we are having a visit with her mother-in-law this evening.

However, the good news is that our mini/craft afternoons will be resuming, and I will definitely stay awake for that. Both of my mini partners have moved from houses to apartments, so it has been a very long job to thin down decades of accumulation for them. Many minis have also had to go....

I've had a significant birthday, and have received the beginnings of a very large 1/12 scale pub, that was begun at least 25 years ago, so I had better get moving.

Thank you for continuing checking out the blog, one way or another I will start posting progress on a great many projects within a few days.

Still Here, Still Working....

 The previous owner of my newest camera arrives in a week, and will hopefully give me some help in how to move photos from the camera to the desktop and from there to the blog. I was, kind of, under the impression that improvements in electronic technology meant that operating these various computer-assisted items would become easier, but it appears that they just become more and more complex, difficult for those of us who are, ahem, older! I long for the day when all my devices will respond to my voice commands!

There is another carpet in the making, rather a complex design that I can only do for a little while each day, as my fingers cramp up. There have been a few non-urgent health issues, that have required in the last month three or more doctors' visits to deal with; among other things, I dealt with a bout of shingles on my, shall we say, "sitting surfaces", which made me rather short-tempered and not at all prepared to deal with complicated stuff. Lots of simple knitting, some puzzles, and a couple of nice days out have helped to deal with it all. The end of the road to recovery is just around the corner now, but I desperately need a week of decent sleep to be up to par again.

On my work table right now are two Christmas vignettes, one of which I hope will leave with my visitor, my younger daughter, as it is hers; we began it together, but with the distances between us now (6 or so hours by plane) it has languished, but I really would like it to be usable this coming Christmas. The other Christmas vignette is a Christmas market stall, mine unless one of my children or their partners would like it, that just needs a little tweaking and gluing to be done. I need space for the other vignettes I've been working on!

I hope to have everything up and running again in a week and a half or so. Thanks to all of you for sticking with me, it is much appreciated.

Please Bear With Me and My Camera(s)....

 This may be a bit of a messy post, as we're experiencing camera woes once again. The camera I was using has developed a mind of its own, and is flipping photos I want to import to the blog from horizontal to vertical;  no amount of editing is fixing the issue.

This little rug is now done; it was partially done, but I ran out of the background floss colour, which had no number or band on it, and finally broke down during my recent vacation and pulled out the entire previous background. I don't like pulling out! The colour scheme is interesting; it is from a very old (50 years or so) pamphlet I picked up second-hand some years ago. The size makes it useful for both 1.12 as a small rug, or in half scale as a full-size rug.

Now, this is the photo that absolutely WILL NOT behave! I have flipped it numerous times, and even cropped it to get rid of the stain on the surface to the left, but nothing works. It is from the book that I was given recently, and I did it first because I really like this blue and cream colour scheme. It is also a smaller rug - I worked it in 22 ct. instead of 18, as the pattern recommended - and will also suit both 1/12 and half scale.

This is where the mess really took off. The old camera was replaced by a new-to-me camera, that has more pixels. It came to me without a manual, and although we have managed to get it to show the thumb-nail photos on the old card, it will not allow me to take photos yet. It appears to take the photo, the flash goes, but then when I go to download it to the computer, there is no photo there. So, you'll just have to trust me when I say that I also finished a lovely Bokhara rug, in browns, reds and cream. When we figure out the new (old) camera, I'll post a photo.

In the works also are grapes; they are still too purple for my taste, which means discarding that batch of clay and starting over. I've "lost" my recipe for lovely red grapes I made a few years ago, and suspect that the instructions I tried to use this past week just gave the wrong quantities of clay to mix. I'll try again!

Baskets are also on my work table; I'm making a wooden basket with two bail handles, hopefully for the grapes when I make them. I'd also like to try making woven baskets out of card, as with a bit of patience and paint they can be made to look a lot like ash splint baskets.

Hopefully we can figure out what is going on with the cameras soon!

Here's Hoping This Works!

My camera isn't responding well, which means the following photos are likely over-exposed or out of focus, but I thought I'd try anyways!

Last Wednesday, I did some clay work for the Autumn vignette, and these are freshly dug potatoes, which I think came out fairly well.

The apple photos are very sad, in that I can't adjust the flash mechanism; we're at the tail end of the current tropical storm, which is leaving us pretty much in the dark and the camera won't work without the flash, and with the flash the colours don't show at all well. However, I'm quite pleased with the apples, they were coloured with chalks before the polymer clay was baked.

On Friday, we spent the day at a huge outdoor flea market, but it may be the last time we go, as the offerings were very very boring! It used to feature lots of antiques dealers, but nowadays seems to have personal garage sale stuff, discounted stuff, lots of homemade bath products and endless piles of crocheted novelties. However, I did find a couple of things that can be used for minis.

Although the pictures aren't that great, the frames are very nice and in 1/12 scale; I'll fill them with my own paintings one of these days.

These rather thick little 1/12 scale containers will work well in prep board settings; I think the two-handled pot will work for something like baked beans, while the little pitcher might work for pancake batter. They were very inexpensive, and small porcelain items are hard to come by locally.

Wednesdays are still "Mini Days", and I hope to make grapes for the Autumn vignette tomorrow. And I hope the endless rain stops soon.....

The Autumn Vignette So Far....

 The vine has been re-leafed, and I do like this better. The apple basket has been aged (outside only, as it will be "filled"). At the outset of this project, I stated that I hoped to make as much as possible myself, mostly out of cardboard and the like, just to prove that anything can just about become something else. 

So far, the structure is 1/4" (1 cm) foam core, doubled for the floor. The wall and door are made of packaging cardboard over foam-core scraps; the window and door frame are more cardboard.  The apple basket is made from an old school binder divider and a bit of wire. The birdhouse is a shaped scrap of 1/2" square basswood, with a roof from a bit of moss ribbon. The vine leaves are painted paper, in 4 different sizes, each shaped individually. The window glass is a piece of packaging plastic, while the box of fertiliser  (I think!) in the window is a scrap of wood and a cut-out from a gardening magazine. The stone doorstep is a strip of builder's foam, while the grey basket is a painted plastic bottle cap. 

The tools and watering can are commercially made, from my stash. And the shingles are left-overs from a very old project, each shingle cut in half to look more to scale, while the door-handle is a bit of carved and painted wood. The weathered bench is a left-over kit from a course I taught pre-Covid,while the trunk of the vine is made of floral wire and floral tape. It still needs to be "planted" on the base.

I was able to find a very simple, warm brown wooden picture frame, which the box will be set into. At the moment, I'm working out how to make a woven basket from file folder cardboard, a bit of a challenge although I do think I have instructions somewhere in my (far too many) magazine stash. 

I'm still looking for beads for the grapes, but if I can't find the right colour this week, I'll make up a batch of polymer clay grape bunches to hang on the vine, with some tiny tendrils made from fuse wire wrapped over a sewing needle.

It's coming along! And the weather has cooled, although that may be temporary; we were in the tail end of tropical storm Debbie here. And much to my chagrin, the trees are beginning to change colour and the birds are flocking. Winter is coming but not for a couple of months, I hope!

Still Working Away on Things....

 Back from a short vacation by the sea, and mostly recovered from working at the Provincial Highland Games, I'm working at finishing things again. Today (Monday) is a holiday here, and as it is nice and cool for a change, I've been able to reach some progress on my various bits and pieces. First of all, I want to show you a photo that I took to help me make an espaliered tree or two for the eventual Apothecary Garden. This is from Kew Gardens, and will have to serve me in making a mini version, as it seems next to impossible to find the Dutch dolls' house version that prompted the idea of espaliered trees:

You'll likely have to enlarge this, as the trained branches of the trees are somewhat obscured by the brickwork. It will be an interesting challenge to make a "flat" tree in miniature, and it will likely have to be glued here and there to the eventual wall. The foreground planting looks like lavender or rosemary, both of which tend to be found in Apothecary gardens.

And yes, I've begun to re-leaf the grape vine; the humidity has slacked today, and the paper is taking the creases properly again! I'm using four different sizes of maple leaf punches to make the leaves, made from hand-painted papers with appropriate autumnal speckles on them. The vine is about half done, which means more punching is needed, as I've used up all the third size leaves punches.  The basket was started yesterday (Saturday), allowed to partially dry overnight, and had the last banding and the handles attached today. I have super glue on my left index finger....

The basket was made from old binder-divider cardboard, following a tutorial in the Nov. 2014 issue of Dolls House World. The wire handles were formed over a block of scrap wood, and that's where the super glue came in. I think it looks pretty good for a first effort, and "filled" with apples or the like, will make a nice addition to the vignette I'm working on.  It still needs aging, though!

On the needlework front, three of the rugs are "done" except for hemming and fringing; I'm waiting to do several at once, as soon as the rest are done. There seems to be an oriental theme here!

I did work on rugs on my little vacation, sitting on the rear veranda of my sister-in-law's house, which looks out over a lovely lake and tends to have a nice breeze going, as well. The rust/gold rug is a colonial style, but I misread the pattern and it will be a wee bit more colourful than planned; the pattern called for two rows gold and one rust rather than what I began to do. As the back is worked in a labour-intensive stitch (diagonal basket-weave), I didn't have the courage to pull things out yet again to do it according to instructions. The Bokhara-style rug is all half cross stitch, due to the dense pattern, and will need blocking as that stitch tends to pull needlework on the bias.

A close-up look at the leaves on the grape vine....

Well, back to work!

We're Not Used to this Heat and Humidity

 ....and it is taking a toll on us. We more or less live in the family room or out on the lower shady patio, as the parts needed for the heat pump to produce air conditioning "are not available right now". I guess that they will magically show up this fall, when it really isn't that hot and humid any more, unless it takes until after the winter, when we depend upon said heat pump. 

That said, it is taking more time than I expected to get the little rugs going to the point where I can take them on vacation next week, but here is a progress report:

The blue and white Chinese rug is ready for the cream-coloured background work, then the hems and the fringing on the ends. It's the most advanced rug at this point. (It just printed out lengthwise, and by madly pushing keys it suddenly became horizontal again - why and how?)

And I can't duplicate the previous operation, as this one just turned itself vertically, from a horizontal position. This is a Colonial-era hooked rug design, the perimeter is complete except for the hemming, but the blocks need filling in.

I give up! This is the problem rug right now, the Bokhara design is absolutely gorgeous, but in the heat and with a hot cat on my lap I have to put it aside for a while! I'm doing more pulling out than actually embroidering. The poor cat doesn't realise that she is only adding to her humans' discomfort.

My mini friend Marilyn passed on to me three bankers' boxes of miniaturist magazines on Monday; she is downsizing for an upcoming house move. And I'm finding many things I'd really like to try my hand at in the future, but really need to finish some of the other semi-complete projects going on at the moment. As always, supply issues and fear-of-electrification are the main culprits for my not being able to get into finishing them. The new things I'd like to try are all really perfect for some of the many UFO's I have in my workroom right now....

There will be a number of duplicate publications in the boxes of magazines, for which I'll try to find homes. It's too bad that postage costs are so horrendous, otherwise I could send them to people who've just discovered minis and would enjoy a helping hand.

I'm off to the seaside for a few days, and hope that it will be considerably cooler there than it is here.

I Can Change My Mind After All

So, I really haven't been all that happy with the way these leaves looked on my grape vine, and have just ignored it for now, but I would very much like to finish this vignette. As a step towards this, I roamed my garden and found some wild grape vines at the bottom of the property, and I picked one of the leaves.

The grape leaves definitely look more like maple leaves rather than the vine-looking leaves I cut for this vine (except for the tiniest ones, which are fig leaves!) Therefore, I will now carefully pick off all the leaves heretofore applied to the vine trunk, and replace them with maple leaves in a variety of sizes. And I hope I'll like those better, and feel like finishing the vignette sooner rather than later.

Most of the activities I engage in outside of my home are currently in hiatus for the summer, and will start up again after Labour Day, in September. And I will be away for a few days later this month, as well. But I am still working away on the rugs, with the blue and white Chinese rug ready for the background stitching, another rug having the diagonal chequers laid in, and a third one ready to be put onto canvas. These I can take with me while I'm away, to keep my hands busy. With 3 days "off" from those other activities, I hope to do the denuding of the tree this week, and begin the process of cutting and shaping new leaves.

It was a nice day today, and I spent much of it knitting on my lower patio, where we recently installed a new table and chairs; I hope to spend more time working on my hobbies out there on nice days. As the patio is on the north side of our house, much of the day it is in shade, perfect for my skin type - I tend to resemble boiled lobsters after too much unprotected time in the sun....

A Friend Gave Me a Book....

 ....and it is a book on miniatures that I had never come across in my decades of working with minis. The friend was, once upon a time, thinking of getting into making minis (she's a fantastic Real Life furniture maker!), but never did. As she, like me, is down-sizing wherever possible, a week ago at my volunteer job she passed a bag of mini things on to me, including a number of books. Three or four of those I already own, and will be passed on to friends in turn. But one was new to me: Building Miniature Houses and Furniture, by Dorie Krusz, published in the US in 1977, about 20 years before I got immersed in miniatures. The book features a modular method of house building, with the example being a Georgian/Colonial multi-story house and lots of appropriate furnishings for it. 

And there were half a dozen or more charts for making miniature rugs! Well, I'm currently working on 3 miniature rugs at the same time, and have begun finding appropriate embroidery thread colours for several more. That's why it's been quiet....

Also, of course, at this time of year most organizations and groups wind down for the summer, and that has been keeping me busy also. I did, however, finish the blue and white runner - which is coming up the wrong way around, and I can't find the edit button. Hmm, the Carpenter-in-Chief did some scans for me last night, so I'll have to figure out how to get my edit button back!

I will have to redo one of the fringe rows, as I did it  upside down. That's for another day.

I also made a tiny cushion cover, on 22ct hardanger, and at some point will make a few more, as my stock of cushions and rugs/mats/carpets is getting low. This one took quite a while, as it has lots of colour changes.

Here are the works in progress, on top of a number of sheets of scrap booking paper I found on the secondary market, which will work very nicely indeed for quick vignette settings; two types of script, one of which is medieval, some nice tile flooring, and some plank flooring. The Chinese rug and the diagonal tile rug are from the newly acquired book, while the dragon rug is from a very old pamphlet; I am not entirely happy with the colours, but it is very near finishing. Currently, I'm working the diagonal basket-weave stitch for the background on this one. The tile rug is getting its diagonals done, and the Chinese rug is ready for background and borders. These I can do without having to carry books etc. around with me, and will give my hands something to occupy them as we (hopefully) get in a few short trips this summer. Each piece in a ziplock baggie with its needle and floss, and only a tiny pair of scissors needed!

Also in the bag of things my friend passed on to me were some beautiful cedar shingles, lots of plumbing-type hardware in brass, and many types of hinges, as well as some minis, tiny ceramic tiles, and a package of MagicSton. I've never tried the latter, and this may be a good opportunity to do so.

I'm still leafing out the grape vine for the vignette, as well as researching how to make convincing grapes without having to do a lot of polymer clay work, but that may be too much to hope for....

A Bird House and Painted Paper for Grape Leaves

The apple basket has been aged and given a handle; the "wooden grip" is rolled paper, with some 20 gauge galvanized wire for the handle. My stash turned up a nice rusty watering can, which should also feel at home in this setting. The strawberry jar may get strawberries, just have to see if I can make polymer clay into convincing strawberries of the ever-bearing variety, the only ones that would still be around in the autumn. Otherwise, it may just have strawberry leaves starting to go red at their edges, and perhaps some runners.

The wood and burlap wall pocket might work for a door ornament, I'll have to see. Made in 2020 at the height of Covid, it does seem a good fit for the scene, and would look nice with a couple of leafy branches, berry branches and sunflowers. And finally, a bird house that is more in scale with the scene; it's a 1/2" (13 mm) square section of dowel, trimmed to make the roof peak, with a piece of moss ribbon for the roofing, and an end of painted wire for the perch. I aged the moss a little with some dry brushing in orange, as it was very summery green.

I've painted some paper for the autumnal  grape vine leaves; this is a nice variety, and I can add some red to some of the punched leaves, or some green for deep veining, using a sharp colouring pencils. The "fancy" leaves will, naturally, be the more visible ones at the front of the scene. I'll start punching this evening, while watching TV, and begin with 25 of each size and colour....

Now I'm going to attempt a bushel basket made of card stock for the potatoes, complete with little wire handles. And I'd also like to try plant pots made of cardboard, as my stock of resin and wooden pots is getting more than a little low. It's coming along!

Just Can't Seem to Get the Best Bird Shelter

There have been two attempts at a suitable birdhouse for this little vignette, but both seem out of scale with the size of the setting. I'm still working on it, but other work is going on nevertheless. One birdhouse was made of wood scraps, the other, smaller one of cardboard, but they both still appear too big when placed in the setting.

The vine is ready for painting; it is made of a framework of brown, cloth-covered floral wire, which is then wrapped around with brown floral tape. The tape was also used to give the appearance of branches getting thinner near their ends. In the original, the vine is against the wall of the shed, but I prefer to have it framing the scene, while not extending outside of the eventual frame. Grass grows in the corners, moss is dotted on the roof shingles, along with some orange and yellow lichen blotches (dots of paint dry-brushed out for effect), and there is moss and weeds along the foundation.

 In the corner of the step is one of my treasured Bonnie Lavish dandelions; I bought a kit for these years ago, and am using them rather sparingly in various settings. Another one appears at the front of the Provencal scent shop, elsewhere on the blog, next to the blue fence.

The vine will likely hold grapes. The bottle cap basket has its first coat of paint, and will be aged and given a bail handle with a wooden grip, and will hold apples harvested outside the boundaries of this vignette. I think a chrysanthemum plant in a pot will look good, so that may appear soon. The gardening tools are very new-looking, and need dirtying and aging, to better match the somewhat dilapidated look of the shed.

I think the little grapevine wreath would look better on the shed door, with a sunflower and some autumn leaves tucked into it. Yes, the scene has decided it wants to be autumnal! Now I have to make grapes and apples, potatoes and orange, yellow and green vine leaves, and I can't forget the tendrils for the vine; these will be made by wrapping fuse wire over a darning needle....

Yes, miniaturists are crazy!

The Set Is Ready for Dressing

 

I will admit that a certain amount of bad language was involved, but it has been a somewhat frustrating day! We are being invaded by warring factions of very large and smaller carpenter ants, and we can't figure out where they're getting in. I must have stepped on a couple of dozen today, and found a number that had been decapitated by, I presume, other warring ants. This seems to happen every Spring! There is currently a pile of dust, cat fur and dead ant parts to dispose of, as I have broken my downstairs dust pan....

Yesterday, I created a roof out of a strip of heavy cardboard and broken-apart dolls' house cedar shingles. There was a pile of pre-dyed shingles in my stash, so no paint was needed to age them. I will have to place small tufts of  "moss" and "lichen" on them, and see if the folded cardboard brace under the shingled strip needs painting.

At any rate, I pin-hinged the door and then reinforced that with cardboard strips on the inside, as my pin hinging leaves something to be desired; I really don't like doing it, as I always seems to go crooked, and I was working with less than 1 cm (3/8"?) thick foam core. I also had to carve a door handle, as my small wooden beads, my go-to's for inexpensive door knobs, have been put away "safely" and can't be found at this point.

The doorstep is a chunk of pink builder's foam, carved to look worn and cracked, and then painted. The front of the shed is now glued into the frame, and the next step is to dress this little "stage set", once the drywall compound on the floor dries up. Then comes a vine, a bench, birdhouse, garden tools which all have to be dirtied to look used (I had some in my stash), gravel, grass, weeds, flowers and empty pots, etc., etc. And of course, a bird or animal....

The dressing of the "set" is what I enjoy doing most; the season for this scene has not been decided yet, which gives me lots of choice depending on what I have on hand in supplies. The original was Fall, but that means grape vines and making lots of grapes. Maybe it will be summer, and I can do morning glories and clematis vines. We'll see!

Didn't Have a Lot of Time Yesterday or Today

 However, I did manage to paint the front and the door to the shed vignette. I managed to put on the base coat Friday. I see this shed as once having been a lovely blue, but the sun, rain and winter have all taken their toll. Blue fades very typically on houses here, and I'm pleased with how the base coat turned out.

I used a mix of white, Cape Cod Blue, a touch of Prussian Blue, and some Jade to get this particular shade. For the aging, I used burnt umber, white and Seminole green. Some careful sanding is also still needed for extra wear.

The door, door frame and window frame were painted with aging chalk paint (I added water) in a shade of beige called Primitive, again to get that impression of an old building badly in need of a fresh coat of paint.The foundation strip is faux-painted in a dirty cement colour. I was purposefully careless with the paint work, as this shed has been around and has been repainted before, and not by professionals!

Saturday morning was the annual plant sale of our local botanical society, so that took up part of my morning. I picked up a variety of flowering plants to add to my garden. I also spend two hours every Saturday at our local multi-cultural facility, in a learn-to-knit and practice conversation in English at the same time. Great fun with ladies and girls from all over the world. I used various shades and a very dry brush to further age the building, but I think it still needs a  bit of antiquing gel to bring out the board and batten of the siding. 

Next up will be carving a handle for the door, and making a two-over two window to go into the currently empty space, as well as adding a doorstep. Once that is done and the door is hinged in place, I can glue the false back into place and begin on the roof overhang and the dirt patch in front. Then comes the fun of "set dressing"; I hope to add a wild grape vine (they grow all over our area), a potted plant or two, tools and a bench for a well-earned rest, and landscaping etc.

And I'm still enjoying the project....

Gave Myself a Mini Day (Photo-Heavy)

 It is very warm and humid out again, we've gone from sort-of-spring to right into summer. The temperature today was 30C, which is rather more than we usually get here in May! So it seemed a good idea to work indoors, in our downstairs room, which is nice and cool.

This is a small project, designed by Cat Wingler, for which the instructions are in the March 2003 issue of Miniature Collector. I bought the magazine second-hand at a show, years ago, because this little scene really appealed to me. Now I've challenged myself to make my version of it, using cardboard as much as possible, and making just about everything myself. We'll see how well I do at that challenge! I do like faux finishes, and this one could have a lot of those.

The instructions were for making the box out of foam core, and then painting the base of the simple box black. There was some black foam core left over from my younger daughter's time at Art College, so that meant I didn't have to paint! The box is held together with sewing pins and Weld Bond glue.

There is a shallow false wall, with my guide lines all over it (I am straight-line challenged, after all!). It is held away from the back of the box by strips of foam core (mine is 1 cm thick, about 3/8"), and for greater thickness I glued two strips back-to-back for the spacers. In this photo, the interior of the window opening has been lined in pieces of skinny coffee stir sticks. The inside of the doorway will have the same finish.

Instead of wood, I'm using cardboard strips in a board and batten design; this seemed the best way to do the walls in lieu of using the recommended stuff. I was testing an existing doorstep, but it is too low and the other piece I thought would work is too high, which means making a doorstep to size for the project.

Testing, testing, testing....

So far, all I've used is the foam core (scraps of which are in the photo), two kinds of cardboard which we get in our boxes of tinned cat food, skinny stir stick and rough piece of wood cut down from an old mandarin orange crate, along with straight pins and so far, 3 kinds of glue.

Before I go to sleep tonight, I'll give the cardboard board-and-batten walls and door surface a coat of sealer, and tomorrow or Friday, I can start painting it to look like wood. So far, this is fun!

Back At It

 My stock has been pleasantly depleted by the sales at the recent new miniature show, and I thought I'd better get going at creating some new pieces. In the process, I rediscovered some pieces I never did finish, and they are now going to get done, before summer hits and I don't sit indoors all that much. Right now, we are in blackfly season....

It had been my hope that the blue runner in the foreground would be an easy piece to work, but I'm finding my eyes wandering between the swirls of the border design; the centre of the piece was much easier! But if I tackle it slowly, it should work. The two long ends of this piece will be hemmed, while the two short ends will get a fringe.

The small, multi-coloured piece at left is a fire screen insert, cross-stitch on 22 ct Hardanger fabric. I don't really like cross-stitch at this small scale, so I'll try doing it on 22 or 24 ct canvas in petit-point. The bell-pull is out of scale, more suited to fashion dolls than 1/12th, so it likely won't be finished. However, I do like the cushion, as the colours "speak" very nicely to one another. The really small piece is an experiment, doing a sampler in 1/24th scale; I'll have to see what it looks like framed. The motto in the upper left is ready to be mounted and framed.

And then there are the House of Miniatures vintage kits, which I'd really love to provide with needlepoint upholstery. That will mean, in the case of the chairs, likely having to do the same design four times, which could become rather boring. We'll see! I've also pulled out some designs for plants and wooden pieces which I've long wanted to try out, plus I also want to finish at least one or two of my far too many UFO's (unfinished pieces).

Well, the New Mini Show Was a Success!

 And we're all happy that it did go well, so there will be another one next year. It is currently the only show in the Canadian Atlantic Provinces (New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador) that we're aware of. Lots of people came to visit, lots of nice comments, and it turns out that we have the Grand Prize winner of the 2024 Creating Contest right in our area, which means we got to see her contest entry. And she has only been doing miniatures for two years! And I didn't think to ask for her name, but she has an article in American Home Miniaturist coming soon. Her entry was wonderfully imaginative and exceedingly well carried out. I'm going to find out her name, but I did have the presence of mind to give her one of my business cards. (By going through another Creatin' Contest winner's blog, I discovered her name is Christie M; all I knew from the Moncton Show was that she was Heather's daughter!)

Now I'm nearly out of stock, which means that I need to make things for next year's show. To that end, I've picked up 5 House of Miniatures (vintage) kits, all of which need upholstering, and my plan is to do some needlework upholstery for them. There were 2 matching chair sets and 2 ottoman benches, as well as a day bed, and I do believe I have more of them in my own extensive stash of HoM kits, so I can do sets if I want. And I have to get back into plants and polymer clay work too. Hopefully, I can make some stock over our long winter to come, which begins in November....  But I do have tulips blooming, and the leaves are beginning to bud on the trees, so first of all, Spring and Summer to enjoy. And of course, minis to make.

It was lovely too catching up with miniaturist friends who I only get to see at this show, as we live all over the area.

I've also got a small commission, for a couple of trout to fit into a very beautiful copper Jason Getzan fish pan. That should keep me busy!

Got Those Kits Done!

Here are the finished kits, and I messed up just a little with the large granny square one on the frame; my weary brain forgot that if I made the frame wider, in order to have a wider piece of work on it, that that piece of work would need a wider piece of double-sided tape to adhere it to the frame. I pieced the piece of tape provided with some of my own carpet tape, and it worked, although it is just a tad clunky. The completed piece just doesn't match up size-wise with the photo of the finished product the manufacturer provided! 

The sides of the embroidery frame itself were the ones provided with the small tapestry frame, and with the wider dowels it is much more suitable for the granny square piece. The small tapestry frame now has the frame from the first piece, and that suits the size of the black tapestry piece much better!

The chalk paint nicely sets off the colours, which were my substitutions for the colours provided; I have a baggie full of scraps of DMC and Anchor embroidery floss, which I use for small projects, and as these are intended for young collectors, I think my colours are much more appealing. Every little kit came with a sheet of cut-outs to colour, and I have left these for the purchasers of the finished products. The little rug which goes with the patio bench is a little bigger than suggested, but I like the slightly larger size, myself. I dislike tiny mats in front of larger pieces of furniture, as I tend to trip over those....

Here's hoping someone purchases them! The C-in-C has decided to come with me to this show, and has offered to be, among other things, my coffee/lunch delivery person. Also, my car needs new brakes, and his doesn't, so we'll take his somewhat larger vehicle.

Some Kits! Should Have Tossed Them

 Odd title, right? You'll soon see why. I pulled out three old (quite old!) kits today, thinking that I could finish them for the show in early May, and perhaps make some young collectors happy with low, low prices. They all came to me second-hand, and they ALL had their problems. Here they are, only one came completely sealed, the other two had been opened. I did the embroidery earlier, more about that below!

This is the oldest one, I don't know how many years I've had this, and if you look closely, one of the bars on the tapestry frame and the back rung of the chair are a different colour. They were missing, but it had been opened, and I figured I could still put it together as I had the right size of dowel in my stash. The red fabric, embroidery Aida cloth, is destined for the chair seat. The larger, quilty-looking piece, is intended to go on the embroidery frame, as per the photo. Hmmm, it's very much out of proportion with the wooden pieces provided for the frame, if you go by the photo on the front of the kit....

This is one I inherited from a mini friend who retired due to health reasons. It too had been opened, and all the dowels were missing, but again, I was able to cut them from my stash. This kit had dried out quite a bit, so there was a bit of damage on one of the frame legs, and some of the ply kind of let go when I was knocking the cross-bar dowelling in, but that was glued and sanded. The black tapestry goes in the frame, the red is again the chair seat. Folded over lengthwise, the tapestry might fit the frame....

This is another inherited piece, the only one that was still sealed in its package. However, when I began to sand it, it was apparent that the cutting of the piece - they were die-cut in a piece of plywood - was done backwards, which means the rough edges of the dowel holes are on the better side of the wood. It was necessary to fill the edges of all the dowel holes on one side of the bench. It has a piece of upholstery and a little rug with fringed edges. This one might just work without too much changing around....

The embroidery thread which came with the kits was like very thick sewing thread, in terrible colours, so I dug into my stash of floss and used my own threads for the embroidery on all the pieces. I did begin the little tapestry and the quilt with the colours provided, and the effect of the things was, well, like it had been dragged through the mud, so I pulled it all out, and I like my colour choices much better. I also decided to minimize the amount of outline stitching in dark thread on the above two pieces, and just outlined the rose buds and their leaves, much daintier. The kit had provided black thread, but you should avoid outlining in black, but use dark brown or dark gray instead, especially on miniatures.

The package fronts show two stained kits, and one painted one. These will all be painted, as you cannot, with the best will in the world, hide the plies in the plywood. Chalk paint in white seems the best choice to me for this, and I hope to pick some up tomorrow, as the white chalk paint I had had dried out.

In order to finish these pieces, I have to re-make the frame for the quilt; it may work out best if I replace the sides of the tapestry piece with the sides for the quilt piece, using the longer sides of the tapestry frame and replacing the cross-bars with longer ones to, hopefully, show the whole of the quilt top.

I thought these would be quick little projects....

Medieval Eye Candy

So, this is a view along one of the canals/rivers in Colmar, France, not far from the German border. The area is sometimes called Little Venice, because of all the waterways running through it; in fact, there are some bridges with houses on them. This area is widely photographed, because of the age of the buildings, and the colours used on them are supposed to be traditional; yellows and oranges from ochres, pinks from bull's blood mixed into the whitewash, green from vegetable matter. There's a lavender one in this shot.The whole effect is delightful, and the area is widely known as a Medieval Village, although it is in the middle of a small French city.

The red things attached to the fence are official Love Locks, inscribed with a couple's names, initials and the date they were there, and signifying eternal love.... These are official padlocks, sold in the area, and the only ones now allowed. Apparently, regular padlocks are too heavy, and more than one fence railing has buckled under their weight. Once the lock is attached to the railing, the key is tossed into the water.

There are whole areas where these buildings have been carefully preserved, and most of them are on very narrow, cobbled streets and alleys; this one is wider, and is a pedestrian shopping area. There are some new builds mixed in, and I found myself wishing the new builds had some sort of similar character!

These buildings are higgledy-piggledy, often crooked and bent, but I just love that they've made a real effort to retain them as they were.  We wandered through this area for a couple of hours, and every corner we turned revealed more of these old dwellings and shops. I'm above average height, and we modern visitors do have to remember to duck under doorways and beams, though!

Hope you liked this view back in time; these are the real thing, not modern reconstructions, although there most likely was some rebuilding required following WW II - there is a famous battlefield not far away, which some of our fellow passengers with armed forces connections visited.

 

The Kitchen at Markburg Castle

One of the places I visited on my recent (delayed by 3 years!) 50th wedding anniversary trip was to Marksburg Castle, set on a crag high above the Rhine River in Germany. If you see an ad for Viking River Cruises on television (north America only, I'm afraid!), you will see this as the last castle in the advertisement, with its yellow walls and large square crenelated tower, topped with a narrower round tower.

It is the only castle in the area that was never destroyed; Napoleon and his army were only the last band of destructive idiots to mess up the area. His army destroyed just about every castle on the Middle Rhine around 1782-86, very much a scorched earth policy. The height of this castle, along with the pitch of the cliff, made it virtually impregnable. So this is the real thing and not a later romanticised rebuild of the original building. It was a must on my trip!

For lovers of all things medieval, this place was wonderful. A few of the rooms have been left as they were when the original inhabitants lived in it, with excellent and true-to-life reproductions along with original antiques.Wood, pewter and brass, along with pottery, make up the majority of the furnishings, and they are, everywhere in the castle, sparse by modern standards. Do enlarge the photo to see the wonderful array of medieval kitchen equipment!

To help me with my eventual Apothecary Garden, I bough a book there, Der Krautergarten auf der Marksburg (The Herb Garden of the Marksburg), as a guide for what apothecaries as well as castle communities used for medicinal and culinary purposes. 

I'll post the occasional photo of what I saw there, as well as some of the medieval neighbourhoods in towns and cities along the Rhine that we were able to explore. Did I have a good time? A huge resounding YES, although the weather was damp and chill. We did have two days of nice weather, but I'm so glad we went on this trip! No less than 3 ancient cathedrals ( Strasbourg, Koblenz, and Cologne), more preserved timbered buildings than I ever saw in one place, a real feast for the eyes and the imagination of someone like me who loves to make minis of the medieval! Hope you enjoy them in the days and weeks to come....

Back Soon!

Three years after the event, the Carpenter-in-Chief and I are heading to Switzerland, for a short Rhine cruise to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. That happened during Covid, so no celebration of any kind in person was possible, sadly. The 2 years after the restrictions were listed, the C-in-C was heavily re-involved in Refugee Resettlement programs, as people who had been waiting for travel restrictions were once again able to leave, and we just couldn't take the time at that point.

But now, it is happening. One fun part for me will be on the Rhine Canal, which in The Netherlands is raised above the level of both the highway and the railway. Both the C-in-C and my older daughter traveled by rail with me below this, much to all our amusement, and now we will be on the upper level.

There is a snowstorm right now, and we have to drive close to 500 km to get to the airport. Also, there are transportation strike actions going on in Germany, and we have to fly to Basel from Frankfurt. Keep your fingers crossed for us, that there will be no hitches!

Along the way, I hope to see a couple of wonderful medieval sites; a castle above the Rhine which has never been destroyed, and Colmar in France, full of medieval buildings with pastel paint jobs on the plaster areas between the timbering. If our travel permits, we may fit in a quick visit to the Puppenhaus Museum Basel, but that depends on the planes being on time. They have superb miniatures there.

There should be stories (of one kind or another!) when I get back....

The Maple Sugaring Scene Is In Its New Home

 This morning, the diorama was delivered to its new home, Kings Landing Historical Settlement in New Brunswick, Canada. It is currently ensconced in a display case in the Visitor Reception Centre at the site, ready for Maple Sugaring Weekends 2024, on March 9-10 and 16-17. This year marks the Settlement's 50th Anniversary.

Here is the overall view of the finished diorama, with the lights on. I'm very pleased with how it turned out, and I think the staff at the Landing are too. I've been a volunteer there now for 18 years, and my family has always enjoyed visiting. This was Marilyn's and my commemoration of the museum's anniversary.

The centre left holds the sap vat, with its canvas cover, weighted at the four corners by stones sewn to the fabric. The sap workers have just emptied the sap cans, and are preparing to add the sap to the evaporating pans. The sled is pulled by humans, as this is a family sugar bush operation, not a commercial one, which would use a horse-drawn sled.

Beyond the centre, at the edge of the scene, you see a tree with two sap buckets. Behind it on the snow lies an empty  barrel, used to haul water to wash the equipment with, and to make tea for the workers. The large copper cauldron, which is also used to boil down the sap, has been cleaned and is draining against some felled tree trunk sections. Beyond that is the woodpile, and the chopping block with its axe and wedges.

On the other side, the sap boilers are finishing their tea break, using the chest they employ to haul the necessary tools and equipment into the woods as their table. On the stump is a hydrometer in its case, while the sieve, skimmer and scraper are on top of the rock. The small shovel for the ashes leans against the rock. The fireplace was built of commercial miniature bricks, while the pans, smoke hood and damper are made of faux-finished cardboard.

As mentioned before, Marilyn and I used a series of how-to articles published in Nutshell News in April, June and July of 1992. The author of the articles was Ruth Armstrong,  a wonderful metalworker. As we were not metalworkers, we used cardboard and cellulose clay to create the copper and metal sheet items. I enjoy working with faux finishes, and this scene allowed me to indulge that fascination. The only item(s) not made by us were the tea pot (plastic), the two wooden buckets at the back of the scene, and the wooden barrel lying on its side.

Now I have to tidy my work space, and Marilyn is going to work on inventory for the NB  Miniature and Doll Show 2024, to be held in early May. When sugaring off starts, we know Spring won't be that far away....

Syrup Tank

 I had intended to make this using some half scale flooring that had been lying around for ages, but couldn't find how to bend really thin wood without damaging it. That meant finding another way to make the syrup tank.

It is made from two layers of cardboard, the kind on the back of writing tablets, and an outer layer of an old (and carefully used!) brown file folder. The inner cardboard was scored to represent barrel staves, as was the outer file folder card.  Paint followed on the inside - black under the rim that holds the "sap" - and the sides and cardboard hoops on the outer edge. The liquid is a circle of clear plastic from a report cover, and just sits on the inner rim.

I still want to make a "canvas" cover for the tank; in a few older illustrations, the tanks have cloth covers that are pulled back when the sap is either being poured in or out. I intend to make a weight for the corners of the canvas cover, as they had to have had something to hold the cover down as they traveled through the woods emptying the sap buckets.

I'm pleased with tank, although it should have had slightly sloping sides...

Some More Landscaping

 This is the first time I've ever cropped a photo, but you didn't need the window frames or the white plastic table covering! This is more or less how things will be set up, once all the landscaping is in. We "planted" some dead grass, dead bushes and the like, spread some twigs and branches around, and now the next step, hopefully tomorrow, is the slushy path.

Atmosphere Being Added (Before Our Snow Melts!)

 It was well above freezing today, which meant I had to take advantage of the snow still on the ground to help me paint the snow in the diorama.  

This is the centre of the diorama, with chips, bark and sawdust added to the chopping block. The snow in the foreground has been painted a bit, but the area of the sleigh road is still unpainted, as that is my co-creator's task. We hope to get together a couple of days in the new week, to get the landscaping finished and then the lighting can be installed, as well as the last finishing details of the exterior of the diorama.

As you can see, there is still an unpainted area; this will be partly the path, and partly the mess of melted snow and ash, footprints and meltwater, around the fireplace. This is the right side.

And this is the left side. A little dead grass has been placed here and there, as well as bits of moss near the woodpile, and a few dead maple leaves have been placed near the trunks. Next up, I get to make the messy fireplace area.