Digging in the Files

Good Afternoon....I'm late. I went out craft shopping this morning. I had 40% coupons for Michael's and Joanne's burning holes in my pockets. When I got back I never managed to drag myself into the workroom(yes, it's still a workroom). I never went near the basket shop either. So I had to dig down deep into my files and come up with something to entertain.

First I found the original drawing for a bed that I designed and made for Pam Throop's Miss Marple's cottage that she did for Sarah Salisbury. Pam sent me a photo from a magazine that had a similar bed that had been painted and messed about with quite seriously. She wanted one with the "original finish", meaning wood. I went to the U of A Library and got my favorite book on English Victorian furniture and went to work. I always do my sketches on quad rule graph paper. Four squares to the inch makes it easy to draw out a one inch scale bed accurately.

Pam did the house in 1990, B. C.. That's Before Computers. It was a lot of phone calls and notes in the mail to plan things back then. How did we get along before these monsters came into existence? It wasn't easy.

After the sketch was approved I went to work with my trusty Exacto and files. I did the outline of the headboard on the Dremmel scroll saw, but the rest was all by hand. No rotary tool or anything electronic. I don't play well with those. Even the bedposts were "turned" with the Exacto.

Here is the bed at it's debut. I entered it in the TMS Miniature show and it won a first in the furniture class that year. Unfortunately I didn't have a digital camera back then and the photos aren't the greatest. I dressed it with antique linen handkerchiefs and did drawn and pulled work on the pillows.

I then sent it to her and she sent me back this Polaroid shot of it in Miss Marple's bedroom. This is probably the best photo that I have of it. I did the dressing table and little chair at the back of the room too. Sadly, I have no photos, other than this, of those pieces. It has a skirt with drawn work also. I have since learned to take photos of just about everything I do. I don't always keep them but at least I can say I did it.

When all was said and done, it got into Nutshell News in October of 1990. If you can find a copy of that the bottom photo on that page is the finished bedroom.......I tried blowing this photo up for you and it just fuzzed. I also did the wicker chair that sets at the end of the bed. She had a lot of different artisans working on furniture for that house. I was thrilled that I got to do the bed and other pieces. I think that it is in a museum somewhere now.

So much for the oldies but goodies. Please don't tell anybody that I didn't spend the day slaving away over a hot workroom. I'll get back to it. I needed a day off.

See you tomorrow.