More of the Same and A Bit of the Old

More and more designs for Festival are being cranked out. These 6 teasers aren't even all that were made in the last week!

I also finished up the fox quilt and Bejeweled, the hexagonal table topper.

AND I went to Miniature club on Thursday! We made tiny clutch purses.

Time for me to head back to sewing... after I find some dinner. Tomorrow's another long day capped off with more Christmas!

Printed Mini Books

Last week was really busy. Ellie had to be put on a course of oral steroids to combat the current outbreak of "rodent ulcers," aka eosinophilic granulomas on her mouth and left hind leg. She's not thrilled about being pilled twice a day, but I'm just happy the medicine is helping. She's still on the smaller side size-wise. Not even 5.5 pounds, so her doses are small too.

I was also fighting my way back into my miniature studio space. I managed to get lots of things properly put away and a couple of boxes that "belonged downstairs" sorted through and dealt with properly. Only a few more of those to go, which is nice. I"m refusing to ignore them during this round of studio reclamation.

One of the unexpected and time eating things I had to deal with over the previous weekend was the aftermath of Artie knocking my possessions off shelves. Several cherished stuffed toys from my childhood ended up on the floor... where Ellie peed on them. Repeatedly. Lots of soaks with enzyme cleaner and rinses in cold water later and I managed to save them all. I was less than pleased though. With Artie around, merely keeping things where they belong (not on the floor) is difficult on a good day.

The naughty duo!

Oh and did I mention that I irritated my left knee, probably whilst dodging around things trying to get into the studio area. I'd built a wall of tubs to keep a certain dog out of there un-supervised because at one point she was having issues with housebreaking. Apparently my wall was trying to keep me out too! So I'm moving slow as I get things done.

Anyways. On to the fun things!

Miniature club members, myself included, went back to our late friend's home to go through even more of her mini supplies. I came away with a tidy haul of "printies" (printable miniatures) and found several pages with items I wanted to use in my memory scene.

A Mother Goose book that came out of a NAME Miniature Gazette and a sketch pad, with some drawings, from a Dollhouse Miniatures magazine.

This one I had a bit of fun with. It's a coloring book from a printie page in Dollhouse Miniatures. I decided it should have some color added to a few pages. Good thing I didn't need to worry about staying in the lines!

I still need to make the inserts for the walls in the room and glue the carpet in place. Also there's a duffel bag kit that I plan on putting together. Then I'll find (or make) a pet of some sort that will be lounging amongst the disturbed bedding on the sofa bed. Probably right around the squished up
pillows.

I need to get back to work on regular laundry and clearing accumulated stuff from the desks in the studio. Hopefully I'll have this room finished next week. See you then!

Bittersweet

On Friday most of the surviving members of our local miniature club met at our recently departed friend's home to sort through her supplies, stash, and tools so we could purchase what we'd like from her husband. There were many tears and lots of laughs during the hours we spent combing through her treasures. Lots of memories were traded back and forth too. And lots of questions like, "what do you suppose she saved THIS for?" 

Honestly the whole day was overwhelming and I didn't make it through every section and bin before my brain was totally numb. We're talking about decades of collecting that was extremely well-sorted in labeled bins. And that wasn't even her quilting supplies. Those were on a different floor. On and the needlework supplies. Sometimes we'd find something that we knew should stay with the family, so we made room on a shelf for all those things.

These are a few of the treasures that came to live with me. I could spend all day photographing what I brought home, so these are just the highlights. 

I'm already putting together things of hers to build a scene around the sofa bed. I'll have to clean my studio (don't even get me started on that fresh hell) so I can supplement with things from my stash. I've also got some rough plans for the Japanese miniatures. I've been collecting some similar pieces over the years and will be combining them. Somehow. No clue how yet.

Other than that, the rest of the week seems pretty mild. Mercedes got a bath and I baked cookies.

That's all for today. I need to go try to be useful somehow. See you next week!

Titles Are Hard Today

I've currently got a massive head that is making it difficult to think. In a few minutes I'm going to go sit in a dark room for a while, but I wanted to get this posted before I forgot.

The little snowman is finished. No sure if he's going to get framed or turned into an ornament.

I"m still irritated with the mistake on the black bear piece, so I started something new that's been in the stash for a while. This wolf is the companion piece to a grizzly bear I did for FuzzyHusband years ago. So far so good with this one.

My sister loves antique shops and recently found some mini pieces. She repainted the rocking chair and table herself and cleaned up the brass pieces. Her hobby is refinishing and repainting life-sized furniture, so little leftover amounts of paint are perfect for minis that she finds. I've got some special plans for these.

And Miss Ellie's lip is doing much, much better. The hair is slowly coming back now. Soon it will be like nothing happened. Now if we can just keep her from landing on her face when she jumps. Silly wee thing.

Five Ways from Sunday

That's how my last week has gone. So much to do in short amounts of time. I finished up the sequin encrusted wrap skirt and got it delivered, but I forgot to get a photo of it. Picked up stuff for the next sewing commission in the same trip.

Some how manged to get the samples for the miniature club project whipped together. Total eleventh hour situation there. Also one of the bananas in the bunch has a broken end. Whoops.

We had company come in from out of state for the weekend. Because of critter allergies they opted for a hotel, but I still had to remove copious amounts of dog hair and bits of sequins from the house. I hadn't seen them in forever, so I was really looking forward to the visit.

FuzzyHusband and I took them all around town this weekend. First Friday was in full swing, so our eyes got to feast on beautiful things. For our bellies, we had ice cream from a small, family business. It's our favorite place to indulge. They specialize in interesting flavors. I chose pistachio (my all time favorite) and sweet corn. So yummy!

I didn't take many pictures this weekend because I just plain forgot to. Was having too much fun. Also was being worn out by their child's energy levels. I wish we could bottle it and use it for ourselves once in a while!

Something I did get a picture of are the gorgeous hand-dyed fabrics my friend brought for me. She's always played with dyes, but she's only recently been moving into dying textiles in full force. Aren't they fabulous?

From left to right she used: cochineal, madder root, turmeric, marigold, basil and over-dyed with red cabbage, and blackberries. I'm going to have to come up with a special use for these.

But for now, it's time to put away the second round of dishes from breakfast, get back to the laundry, and think about dinner. See you all next weekend!

Festival Dollhouse 2016

Unlike last year, I did not do the majority of the work on the dollhouse. This time it was a group effort with other members of our miniature club. It was also lots more fun getting to play with everyone instead of working on my own.

So without further adieu...

Before:

After:

And closeups of the Christmas decorations:

Not certain there will be a house for next year's auction. It's up to the executive board, but we've already started roughing out plans just in case.

That's all for now. I need to get back to work. We had to have two trees cut down and a friend is coming to pick up wood tomorrow. Lots of sawing and bundling to do. See you after Thanksgiving!

Teaser

I'm up to my elbows in real plumbing for the last few days. There's still some painting to finish on the charity auction dollhouse, which hopefully will be done tonight or tomorrow. Until then, here's the "before" and "after" pictures of the bed that was donated by another member of miniature club.

Before:

After:

I need to get back to work. See you next weekend!

Some Little Things

Wandering around JoAnn Fabrics last week resulted in a pattern and fabric catching my eye.

Artie "helped" of course.

I still need to clean up some threads and topstitch around the zipper.

I followed the pattern exactly and didn't like a couple of things. I'm going to make another one with some changes and see how it works out.

Saturday was our mini club's workshop day. Instead of doing the N.A.M.E. project like we usually do, we all worked on things for our hat shop.

The straw hats were actually make by Kat the Hat Lady years ago. I bought a handful of them undecorated. The purple hat is one I started as an example when I taught everyone that style of hat. I spent a good portion of my time teaching everyone (one on one) how to make silk ribbon roses. 

That's all for now. Time to find a bite to eat and ponder what to do for the rest of the day.