Long time no see

But had nothing fun to write about, sorry! I was unstrapped, have been busy trying to coach my shoulder to work nicely again and get back to work . Shoulder, unfortunately, is not listening to me, so I will probably be in for an operation ( prosthesis). But we will see about that later on, I am due for an appointment in 3 weeks.

I did stitch a bit on the Aubusson, not very much , though.

BUT , to show something....

Yesterday a friend ( Helma) came along to adopt my second Kendrew house. It is wonderfully built, but somehow I did not get any inspiration and I finally decided to look for another home for it.
Helma was the taker, she is over the moon and I am very very happy that , instead of sitting dejectedly in a corner of my house, this house is going to be loved. She has lots of plans with it.
She sent money to an animal shelter as a payment ( my usual fee ...)

However , she also made me these lovely presents:

One stitched kitty cushion ( neat , eh?? I love it!!)

And a wonderful open book of Alice in Wonderland

It is beautiful!!!

Later on another friend came to see my collection, she also brought some presents


Two open cans of kitty food for my cat lady

Kitty litter and a litter tub ( sorry, clearly in use :-) )

And some herrings with onions for the lady herself:. Well, if the cats won't snatch them, that is.

She also made a tin of sardines, but they refused to be photographed, the light is hopeless now. Gabriëlle makes the most inventive and fun miniatures.

Judy's table

A short while ago I bought (off Ebay) a lovely little table with a top, stitched by our Petitpointers member Judy Spadoni . That gal is an artist. she stitches as she goes !!!


                                                      Look for yourself :

                                                 Table seen from the top:

                                                           It is FANTASTIC !!!

I also received a lovely small stitched purse from Lisa S, that she had given Anne . I did photograph it too this morning , but in the dark weather it simply didn't come off. Will try again later :-)

Some more pics and update on the Aubusson

Anne sent me several of the pics she made during her stay here , this one I snagged from her blog , though :-)

You can see why it is preferable to view the canals either in autumn or in spring ; in summer the trees tend to screen off the view of the houses.

 These were some she took in the Rijksmuseum :

               These two she made for me , as they irresistably reminded me of Marsha's porcelain!!!

                                         These she took in the Willet Holthuysen museum:

(that gigantic fireplace was reproduced in miniature by Sue Cook , I think, but I cannot find it on her website now)

                            And now for the update : my Accursed Aubusson! It is still slow going , as I                                        cannot really stitch for long periods of time , but there is SOME progress....

the Rijksmuseum

This week I had a guest staying with me, Anne, Lisa's daughter. She wanted to visit the Rijksmuseum, so we went!

It had been closed for years for renovation, was reopened this summer. I did not fancy going there in summer, though, as Amsterdam is a tad busy with tourists , esp these places, so I hadn't been there yet.
We saw a lot of things- well, it is not exactly small. Fortunately , like in most museums here, photography is allowed (although preferably without flash), unfortunately though, I had forgotten to take my camera and ever tried holding an Ipad steady with one hand ? It won't do !

Anne took several pics for me and I hope to put them on here next week when she will be able to send them.

I downloaded these pics from the Rijksmuseum site. One can register there and happily download to one's heart's content.


(We also saw a lot of other "olde friends" in chest, silver , porcelain , etc....I had seen many of them before- in miniature ! Esp several inlaid "Barry Hipwell"chests :-) )


Here are some things we saw at the Rijksmuseum :

If you follow the links, you can zoom in wonderfully.

The Simplicia chest ( a collector's chest , actually, looking very much like a  miniature apothecary!)

Of course , the two Petronella houses ... 

The Petronella Oortman house

The Petronella Dunois house 

and something I saw at Jens Torp recently - he just made a very limited edition of these! ( yessss, I do know where one of these went, gal)

Miniroomba driver

About half a year ago I bought a RL robot vacuumcleaner (now called Annie) . She does a great job keeping my living at least a tad neat, esp as I am now a bit handicapped, of course. Nice investment! (And well, I always hated vacuuming, anyway...)

There is one  funny video that went viral on youtube "Roomba driver" .

Inspired by this , Alice Zinn, a very gifted US miniaturist made a miniature Roomba driver.

You can find it at her website, scroll down, there is a video on the right 

so recently my cat lady got one from me as a thank you present, rehoming all the homeless cats I have provided her with over the years :-)

Here is my Roomba driver!

Bookcases in place :

Made it to the Apeldoorn fair

Well, this time I did not have the energy to browse much and find surprise things, something I always love to do at fairs, but at least I could take home some things I had ordered . Since, however, hoisting around an arm  which feels like a piece of unwanted luggage (should have left it at home?) is rather tiring, I left early. But, got some glues etc , too, which I do love.
Alas, no rats this time, no other funny things, too, sorry :-(

Here are the things I snagged:

Two bookcases for the Kendrew House, made for me by Gradus Ulfman. Yes, the doors do contain glass . I will fill them up later, maybe today ( first want to see if they fit around the existing mantle, which will come in the centre)

And a David Booth table , brought by Karon Cunningham, to go with my NM chairs. The chairs themselves were made by David booth, as well.

When I came home ( the joys of public transport!), kitties were ready for me!

Stitching update : the Accursed Aubusson

Well, here I am again , with the latest installment of the Aubusson (design by Nicola Mascall, Anchor on 40 hpi silk gauze) .
I am, of course, just doing background. Turning the frame over or handling it at all strains my bad arm rather considerably.
Since I am also only able to work just over two hours every two days,going is VERRRY SLOOOWWWW. But I WILL get there , eventually! By the time I can fill in the flowers I am quite sure I will have the use of both my hands again :-)

Try again !

So here are the pics I promised :

Here is the little kitten , he was obviously bored , so set out to explore the dining table ( yep, silver must be cleaned, sigh) .Glad there is no tablecloth , or the whole caboodle would be sent crashing to the floor. Don't ask me how I know!

                                                   and here is the small plate :

In the meantime my RL kitties enjoy me being at home ! These are the two little friends as they were on the sofa this morning. I had taken some pics of Jojo ,too, so as not to leave her out, but those weren't any good, so will add one later on . But these are so sweet :-)

A new parcel from Marsha!!

Yesterday I received a new set of plates and a bowl from Marsha Hedrick . Tried to photograph her wonderful creations, but my camera did not want to do as I liked (I have a Samsung which I do detest and it is mutual ). So last night I dug out my old coolpix , it made the pics I published yesterday , and today I worked again on photographing her items. One plate escaped me, battery went flat , it won't get back to work till tomorrow, so I will snag a pic from her site for that one :-)

Here goes - be prepared to stand in awe !

This is the little cobalt-blue plate :

Also received some other nice items from an ebayseller , among which silver candlesticks, some days ago :

(err. they are standing on the mantle...)

                                                                      a water jug

(the muffin dish next to it doesn't belong there and looks drunk and disorderly, anyway, I am afraid)

                          and a  nice silver frame ( must find a nice pic to put in, it can even slide in!!)

and a small kitten , will take my own pic later on, too - this one is from seller 

Playing with my minis

Now that I am strapped up,(which will be,unfortunately, until the end of this month instead of last week , as originally expected), but not in incapacitating pain, I have taken up digging out and rehoming homeless minis. I am probably also going on with trying to catalogue my most important items . Not everything!
Anyway , I had a lot of food items , meats and fishies, made by Georgia Marfels (remember the gal ? She makes those delightful rats...), so here goes:

The meat/fish chest for my deli shop was actually a sideboard . I put the upper part up , using wood and for backing a plastic tile sheet ( Lamatile) with two mosaics embedded, also on wood . All food was made by Georgia. Look at those handsome lobster and crab!

Also , finally filled up the basket of the butcher's boy , standing in front of Victoria House. It ia a Roberson bike, painted with the name of my butcher (special request) . Basket had been empty for years, since the first batch of meats rumbled out one by one. Now they are glued down.

                                A little , optimistic dog watching the sausages....

Birds and kitties :-)

While browsing the web last week I found a wonderful UK maker of tiny birds , Sadie of Tiny Tails miniatures . TWO days after she delivered the parcel to the mail , it arrived here ! Two delightful bluetits , one equally delightful bullfinch.
I put them on Bluebell cottage for the pics . They are hard to photograph due to their size and I am too plain lazy to start fighting with a stand for the camera with my poor little one hand, so if you will allow for the poor quality of the pics, here goes :

She also had  an adorable little piece of 5 kitties, called 5 o'clock tea :

Guess what ? My cat lady got that one....