and a sweet kittie from the web

Isn't this SWEET ????

Comes from this loveable site .

monday - kitties again !

Here my red tomcat Floris is exploring the possibilities of drawers. I can see a stack of kitties sleeping in this chest....

In deference to my enthusiasm about kitties , I finished one cushion of Hermione last week (after having completed the tearoom as far as it went).Hermione is a big Maine Coon and her coat was very hard to catch in a reasonable chart.I worked at her for months, designing her several times and starting over and over again. I think, though , that she is looking reasonable now.
Encouraged by this, I started on another kitty, called Puppy. I finished the stitching today , but I do need to add a bit of backstitching to accentuate her eyes.

basically DONE !!!!

This morning I hung in the front frame of the tearooom ( as you may gather from the pic, the weather is still dark, I had to tweak a lot to have a decent-ish pic).
The accessories and inventory still remain to be done, but I will leave that to later , when the tearoom is in its outer shell.

A big thanks to Cynthia Howe for this project, to my dear friend Pat in Arizona, who provided me with shellac, to Larry in Quebec, helping me out when I had a question about it ( check out his blog , full of woodworking tips !) and to Gradus Ulfman, doing the same ( he makes loverly thingies, too!) and you , my friends, cheering me along the way.

Now I must first try and clean my house a bit from the ravages I left in my wake.And then I will get on with some stitching.

and I am a big big girl now

because I made the big big outer box. Of course , not without a blooper , again - slight gap as the bottom and backside were nearly , but not quite flush, but here again , a slightly violent disposition when facing problems like that, is apt to help :-)

Umm , I am really proud of myself , as it is the first bigbig thing I have glued and hammered together . The line you see on the bottom was my first blooper,glueing the toekick to the wrong side of the bottom, but I could remedy that. And nobody is to see it afterwards, when the room is in place, anyway .

ceiling in place !!!

And here we are : finally the ceiling is in place , hurray ! That puzzle on the ceiling gave me some headaches, of course - it should fit snugly, it did while I tried and guess what- there were some pieces which had too little room , just 1/2 mm , I guess. So I pushed a bit and with violence I certainly did win. Who said something about pacifism ? When I fall upon this kind of problem I am a warhorse, if anything :-)

All those thingies on the roof are lamps and wiring. Will be seen to later !

Wednesday evening- Thursday morning

This is my work of yesterday, but in daylight ( well, OK , whatever light there was this morning). Wainscoting etcetera in place ; my bloopers will be nicely hidden behind furniture , that is what furniture is for.
In the meantime I also prepared the ceiling.....

wednesday evening

Spent a lot of time on the teashop and on its ceiling , both of which are nearing completion.
On the left you can see the ceiling beams being varnished; on the right the room itself with wainscoting in place and lots of tape to KEEP it there. But I seem to have made it ( with the usual bloopers ). I am definitely not a woodworker ! Those **&&@@ mouldings splintered in the saw while I was sawing under impossible corners, the cuts in the baseboards refused to get straight,but finally I got there.
And in case you are thinking I only have two cats, as they are the only ones posing in this basket or in the windowsill, look what I see when I turn around : my fat red lady , Jojo, the teacosy ! Vulgar, eh?

Progress of the teashop

Wednesday morning !!

The door windows , etched , no less, and the window mouldings and mullions are in place.

On to the wainscoting and the ceiling....

an exciting day and it has not even ended yet.

Today Dienke , one of the writers for a dutch DH magazine, came to see me and my "collection" for an article in the magazine.We talked a bit about how I had got into the miniatures hobby and what I am doing generally in minis ( mostly stitching and dressing dolls , in case you are wondering).
She took lots of pictures ; I hope they come out right .
( Of course , I had to photograph her , as well - in revenge)

Before she came , I wallpapered the teashop, so that it could dry in the meantime and I could trim the edges before getting on .
The etched windows are in the door now , and the moldings and mullions are drying after being painted and varnished, so I hope to apply those later tonight.

Latest tonight I will be a "host"at MSAT Minidolllist, where a bashing is going on ( again ).

(ooops , forget that : I am scheduled for tomorrow night ! Well , more exitement tomorrow )

Next chapter of the teashop: the walls are up .

Last night before going to bed , I decided to try and attach the walls to the base, so the assembly could dry overnight.
Hmm.
It did dry , allright. The assembly did not really stick , though . I had used something which is REALLY strong, BUT one has to be able to clamp any joint tight with this glue.This roombox does not lend itself to tight clamping.
So I ended up with my usual friend , white wood glue, stuck firmly into the gaps, taping everything together again and left it alone for some hours in a dry and warm place , out of reach of my furry helpers.
In the meantime, I assembled the door and painted many wooden thingies , like wainscoting and window trims etc. It is all drying now . Also , the walls are being prepared for papering, which I hope to do tomorrow .

In between ; the teashop !

I shellacqued ( sp ?) the floor oodles of times today; I think I am by now nearing the last layers, though; it looks reasonably well polished by now.
As I said , there are some bloopers in that floor, but I do trust that some furniture will take care of that !

The start of our conservatory !

Today Dafna and I made a start on her conservatory project. First some sanding , then spray- painting parts which could be done.

I will spray-paint ( just the underground ) during next days, so we shall be ready to move on with the real paintwork. In the meantime, teh young lady must do some thinking about what her conservatory will look like ( we hope....)!
have provided her with some paperwork , like Dolls House Projects and a booklet on flower making , for inspiration. She bought the Freda Gray book.

Floor stained

I sanded and sanded and sanded- then , as per instructions , did a light staining of the floor.

Now it has to dry overnight again, so on Sunday I will get on , applying shellac ( which a dear friend, Pat in AZ , sent me ), in layers.
As you can see, my red cat walked disgustedly away from the stench of the stain , but Fluffy , the b/w does not mind a bit and is happily simmering here. His place is above the radiator, you know....

AND the floor of the tearoom is in place...

Sawing , sawing , lots of sawing , and I am definitely not a great woodworker and never will be, I am afraid - I had to cover some bloopers here and there.
Still , the floor was covered this afternoon; my restful red kitty accompanying me , as per usual ! And now it is drying overnight ( not the kitty, kitty is baking against some radiator this time ) underneath a stack of magazines

Some better pics of the hot dolly...

When I saw the first pictures of my Phoenix doll, I saw that her chain had gone backwards to the neck. While trying to make some other pics, the camera went into a coma, so I had to wait till now to make some new portraits of her.
She looks rather serene , don't you think , after all those problems we went through together ?

Hot dolly restored

After last Monday's disaster I decided I was not going to be beaten by five pieces of porcelain and some pipe-cleaners.
So , after a night of recuperation ( on the radiator for her , she had become rather wet during the extinguishing-festivities , and in bed for me ) I decided to immediately re-do her.
No glue this time ( except for the last decorations on her dress , of course ) , draping only if very necessary and done with water, cutting the sleeves on the forearms in a triangular shape instead of a tube , which cut back on the draping there, as well. All went well, the girl yielded this time to my gritted-teeth treatment and here she is. Hurray !

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Frustration !

I was nearly nearly there with Renatta, was wigging her, then tried to burn
off the fuzzies ( like I always do ) , but as I had forgotten that I had
used all that hairspray for draping -which I usually do not use at all , if
it can be avoided, or only last thing while I finish the doll - the whole
thing started to burn .Faucet open, full speed; still a half- burned doll.
Bwaahaaaahaa !!

Well , she is now nekkid again as the day she was born. sorry
( Umm, no pic of the fire, nope ).

In between

working on Renatta ( Renetta ?), a workshop by Dana. Although the doll is lovely , I am basically happier with sewing than with glueing and draping , so it is a bit hard going.
Work on her further today ; this is how she is looking up to now.

mini-ing : full steam ahead !

I have taken two weeks off- job ( had lotsadays to spare ) to work on minis , well mostly, that is.

One of the projects is the tearoom workshop by Cynthia Howe. I have a BIG carton in that tiny room where all thingies are stashed in , so if I want t get rid of the carton , I had better empty it.

,As it has to be done in steps , anyway , with drying and dewarping time in- between , I started to lay the floor today. Accompanied, of course , by my furry guardians..
Tomorrow , we hope to go on ( yep , all of us ) with the floor .

working together on the new doll

Today Dafna and I nearly finished her next doll. It was hard going, as nearly everything had to be done twice , nothing seemed to go right in one go.

Well , she is nearly there. We do need to do some draping of the skirt and maybe something must be done to he wigging/ bonnet combination, but we are nearing the end !

Here, at least , is Dafna, devotedly ironing some ribbon to be used.

Pics of the doll to follow when she is really ready.

As you can see, my red tomcat, Floris, was happy to oversee the project.