Bisque firing and slip casting

The pottery class was great as usual, lots of talk about this and that and everybody working on their own pieces. This is the result of the bisque firing of the little pots I made on the potters wheel a couple of weeks ago. 

The rather big one at the front is a failure that has been fired anyway to be a tester for glazes. It is not only far too big, but it has also sagged around the base so it looks a bit like a beer belly over a very tight belt.  In short it looks weird.  The rest I'm quite proud of, as most of them are actually round and you have no idea how difficult it is to keep them that way after they are off the wheel!   I will be glazing some of them and decorating a few for the Japanese room.

Then came slip casting with the moulds for the tulip vase. These are the resulting pots on top of the moulds, they still need a lot of work before I can stack them.  The biggest pot on the left is by far the best shape.

The photo below shows the way a mould is supposed to drain into the pot of slip clay. That just didn't happen and it was quite a job to get the slip drained. 

Doesn't look like much but there really is a square base pot in this mould!

I will be casting another lot of pots using more diluted slip and enlarging the hole in the mould to make it drain better. The tops of the pots need bigger holes anyway to stack them properly.  That will then give me a few versions to experiment with. Then again, I might totally change my mind and keep them all as separate pots, who knows?

Happy mini-time,  Idske xx

New rug!

I haven't embroidered a rug for a few years, or even more than a few years... But I've started the Japanese style rug. I'm not sure why it's on it's side, but that's blogger for you or my lack of a wish to fight it...

I changed my mind about the blue and started again, unpicking was just not an option and I still have plenty of this fabric. This colour combination is much better! Working top down from left to right works for me to avoid handling the cream background too much.

 

And then I started the branch in the top right hand corner. Is it too dark? It's still easy to remove, but I need to decide before I go much further. . .

Decisions, decisions...

So far approx 3700 cross stitches in 32.5 hours on 32 count fabric, finished size 15x20cm. Without too much unpicking, it should take about 400 hours, I wonder over how many months... 

Happy mini-time,   Idske

Pottery class

Just some photos of pottery class (taken by pottery teacher Yolande Beer)

to prove it was me making the mess,
the clay next to the water pot is the
remains of failed pots

Very messy!

These small tools are just great to work with in this scale!

I really enjoyed last night's class and Yolande's encouragement when things fail miserably is essential! Next week I'll tidy up the bottom of the pots and then they can dry out and I can start thinking about decorating them.

I might also get to try slip casting from the moulds I made before the summer holidays...

Idske

Fine tuning the pattern

Just a bit better?
It's not really this blueish, the background is cream. This is already the third lot of photos, with extra light, with flash, without, nothing seems to help. Still I think you can see the bamboo style border and the removal of the contour stitching around the flowers, oh and the removal of 2 of the branches and it's now reduced to 6 colours, 2 blue or green or pink or yellow, the cream background and 2 browns and a golden light brown.

It all makes it a bit softer and hopefully an early 20th century Western interpretation of Japanese style. It is now 185x245 stitches, 45325 in total, which should be about 15.6x20.7cm (6.14"x8.14").

I'll try a daytime photo later (it's almost midnight now) to see if I can improve the colour.

Night-night,   Idske

Japanese room

My ideas for the Japanese room are taking shape. There will be panels with the cranes on the walls all around the room and I'll change the colour of the walls to a pale blue and darker blue around the panels - still working on the right look....

As I was looking for the next embroidery project, as the hunting scene is almost finished, I have spent ages figuring out a Japanese style pattern, having looked at loads of examples on Google images. I have used KG-Chart LE (freeware).

It is a bit big on the 30ct fabric I have. It is 200x270 stitches which totals 54000 stitches and would be about 17x23cm. It would almost fill the entire room, which has a very pretty parquet floor that I don't want to cover up entirely. Also it might be too busy with the 4 branches on it, not very Japanese, I think, so I'm going to reduce it in size and reduce it to 2 branches, even though it took many hours to make the 4 branches look right. Not to mention how many hours it would take to embroider it all!

Any comments are welcome, as well as suggestions on colours. I ended up with blues because of the crane wall panels with blue background.  I have tried it in greens/browns, but the software has only very small blocks of colour to choose from and I couldn't get it right. They are all DMC colours. I might also try it in creams/golds/whites and a hint of pink on the flowers?  

Better to get it right on the pattern than having to unpick it!

Happy mini-ing!   Idske

End of the holidays

A few days ago, as I had some time left over after visiting family in the Netherlands, I took my son to The Hague to try and find a paper shop at Noordeinde 186. I found their website a while ago via a blog on another blog on another blog- you know how that happens - (and sorry, I don't remember which one), called  www.papier-royaal.nl. They have the most beautiful papers for miniatures. We very nearly missed it as it is on a very busy street in the middle of town and of course, the stuff in the windows was entirely different, it looked very much like a stationery shop. Also, the name on the shop is Damen, not Papier Royaal...

I bought the blue cranes: 'Kraan blauw' number 3jpp830 in the Japanese Chiogami section and I plan to make panels for the room with the green walls. I didn't realise that I could have bought half a sheet, which would also have been plenty. At least this way, I can afford to make a few mistakes.  The room does really need some other Japanese style items, but I'll decide on those when I've made the panels and know how to balance the whole room...

I very nearly also bought an Art Nouveau paper, but thought that that would be a bit too much because I only have one bedroom left that is in need of ideas. This bedroom is directly above the Japanese style room. I can always change my mind as I now know that many (but definitely not all) of their papers are suitable for miniatures and I can always visit again if I need to!

My sister gave me these brass items; the chandelier actually had real candles, but they've unfortunately gone missing. The chandelier is about 6 cm high x 7.5 cm across (2.5"x 3"). It's a bit too big for 1/12th scale, but I'll think of something to do with it. I'd really like to know how old it is. It's solid brass, so I can't electrify it and perhaps I shouldn't even think about that, as it is at least 50 years old.

The other item is a very small oil lamp, sadly without a glass. It is about 8.5cm tall (3.25") and has a hook for attaching it to something, assuming that they belong together... Could this have been for in a carriage, as in 'horse and carriage'? And what would the shape of the glass have been? 

If anyone knows anything about it, please let me know....

Boxfile project

It's the middle of the holidays and I have been busy with miniatures! It's just not for the dollshouse (that might also give you an idea of why it is taking so long to fill my dollshouse).

Thankfully I'm not the only one of the club that couldn't deal with only 7cm depth and we've both added an extension in the form of another boxfile. The closed part is for the transformer and for storing items for transporting the box, accessible from the back.  It also makes it a lot more stable and it now doesn't require a base plate. 

 2 old box files with plastic and metal parts removed

The lids were taken off, the bottom of the front box is cut out to the middle and then just enough further to the right to form the angled wall by bending it backwards after scoring it on the back, the boxes were then taped together (no ideas yet for the outside of the box...)

Left and back removable walls to allow for wiring

Walls, floor and ceilings in place 

The inside of the shopfront

Current plan is to make it into a furniture/antiques shop. It's a bit too new to fit the bill just yet, but the idea is taking shape. The door and window were bought 'in bulk' for the members of our club. It should be just about big enough to fit the Dutch cupboard, a revolving bookcase, a smaller walnut cupboard I'm still working on, a chair, a tilt top table and if I have enough time a stand for etchings and drawings to browse through. Most of the furniture I've already made for my own dollshouse but the challenge for me is dressing it so that it looks like a proper shop, not a random collection of furniture...

It will also have about 5 or 6 lights (including 2 candle sticks) and LED lights as down lighters in the window. Easier to hide in/on something as thin and flat as the top of a box file!

Lots of work still to do and I'm loving it!