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....