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!

Embroidery

I joined the Petitpointers yahoo group and I feel quite at home there! I have embroidered as long as I can remember, probably starting in primary school aged about 7 or 8. Neither of my sisters understood it, but I just loved it.

This was my last ever effort in full scale. 136 colours, 36 count, about 20"x16" (50x40cm)

Then when I put my dollshouse together over 20 years ago now, I needed rugs for the rather bare rooms.

The first one, probably from the P&M magazine early 1990s, 17x20cm

For the hallway 9x13cm

Afghan rug for the bedroom 11x14cm

Baluchi carpet for the dining room 13x17cm

All of the rugs except the first one are from the patterns in Making Miniature Oriental Carpets and Rugs by Meik and Ian McNaughton from 1998.

I much prefer working in silk (DMC mostly) on 36 or higher count and the patterns were for 24 count. I just added more blocks in the middle. That does mean that the edges need to be modified too and you have to work from the corners to the middle. The dining room rug pattern was for 2x3 blocks (the octagons) and I needed 4x5 to make the right kind of impact in the room. 

P&M magazine oct/nov 2002! Started it in 2007 or 2008 though!

The latest one is the hunting scene for the firescreen. I've got the wood, now I just need to get all the machinery out (table saw, scroll saw and lathe, hurray I love my tools!) and cut it all and turn the post. This project is spread over 4 pages, and the only part about the embroidery is the pattern and the last paragraph, which also includes how to fit it into the screen! It really assumes you know what you're doing. A nice project to finish in the summer holidays starting Friday 20th July!

Delft tiles progress?

Today is another minis day, the weather is grim. Flood warnings everywhere! I live on top of a hill and I don't have a cellar, so all I can do is keep my fingers crossed for everyone else.

On Tuesday I got the 6x4 tiles back and a few little dishes, that I really like. The top bowl is for a pestle and mortar, but the pestle is still to be found, that happens when miniatures go in the kiln with 'normal' sized stuff. 

On the photo above the 6x4 basket tiles don't look too bad, but it isn't great, definitely not good enough to put in the kitchen. The main problem is that the glaze has made the paint run on some of the tiles and they don't look part of the whole, if that makes sense.  It can't have been the paint as all was done from one small pot in one session, the only difference being extra water for the shading. I also think the flowers seem to be floating above the basket and the fruit is too small (that's the three blobs in the bottom of the basket) . 

                                          This close up shows the fuzziness a bit better

Why the glaze hasn't worked uniformly is a mystery. All in all, I could do better, so I will paint another one. It will probably be September or October before it can be fired, though.  It also gives me a chance to make the tiles a bit smaller. These are the equivalent of 150x150mm which is the correct size for Delft tiles but they look too big in the 1/12th kitchen. Or maybe 6x4 is too big for my 1/12th kitchen. I feel a bit more 'research' is in order....