Don't forget to poke the photos to enlarge!

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Witchy Quilt

The witches came to my house today. I made pita bread from scratch and put out all kinds of things to stuff them with and then we stuffed ourselves. A good time was had by all.

I did manage to finish the quilt that I started yesterday.

Here you see it ironed onto the pellon and laid on the backing fabric. I trimmed it to the edges of the interfacing. Then I put the backing fabric under it, face down. Then I trimmed the fabric to about 1/2 to 3/4" all around. I cut off the corners to about a quarter inch and then folded the raw edge of the fabric to the raw edge of the tape all around and pinned it in place. I blind stitched the edge to the front of the quilt and mitered the corners as I went.

Here's Tessie, holding the quilt up for you to see. If you click on the image, you will get a larger view. As you can see, the back is solid and just wraps to the front for a border. It is a bit stiff, but it can be pinned down or glued to a bed if that's what you want to do. Tessie will probably just use it for a lap quilt, since it is quite small. I didn't bother to quilt it since it already resembles a quilted piece with all of the squares that are kind of three dimensional.

I have to go clean up the witchy mess now. Sorry for the short entry. Let me know if there are any questions about the quilt.

Gotta run. See you tomorrow.





Welcome to the Party!

I have a bunch more followers that I have not acknowledged this week. I hope I catch them all!

There is Misty. Her blog is called Rants of a Professional Procrastinator......She is very good at it. There are no posts on her blog. LOL She is indeed a pro! http://mistyintown.blogspot.com/

Next are Dales Dreams and Suzan G. I have no info about these two.

Then there is Nuri at Las Minis De Nuri http://mininuris.blogspot.com/ Lots of interesting things to see here.

Last but not least is Begoña of The Miniatures of a beginner. http://justalittlepush.blogspot.com/ She has just started, as you can tell from the title. Her first piece is very impressive! Go look!

Come on in, all of you. Join the party. Have a cupcake!

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Still Another Way......

Are you tired of the many ways to make a quilt in miniature yet? I remembered a really old one that I learned when I first started out.

It turns out a bit stiff, like the last one, but is much less complicated. It is made from bias tape. If you have a bias tape maker for the smallest size, you can even turn out your own fancy tape to use.

I used some old double fold(the least amount of work)1/4" tape and some single fold 1/2" that I had on hand, so the colors could have been better. I used four colors each way. Don't use any of the same colors going in both directions or you will get a lot of weird patterns.

If you are satisfied with a checkerboard quilt, simply use one color for the horizontal and another for the vertical. In this case, I had a lot of different colors so I used 4 colors in each direction.

The first thing that you do is cut a piece of iron on interfacing the same size as the quilt that you want to make and place it glue side up on the mat. I like doing this type of quilt on a ruled, padded surface. In this case, it is one side of a double sided cutting board. It is easier to tell if you are keeping the lines straight.

Anyway, first you pin the horizontals(or verticals, depending on the direction that you want to do the weaving). Then you simply start doing an over and under weave through the tapes that you have pinned down. Notice that the pins slant away from the body of the quilt so that they will hold better. Put a pin at the start, outside the body of the quilt and weave to the other end and pin again.

At this point, all you are concerned with is doing the weaving. When you get to where the second photo is you will want to tighten the weave so that there is no interfacing showing. You may have to adjust the pins.

Tessie has volunteered to pose for scale.....No, not scale pay as in acting. Scale to show you how big the quilt is going to be. She, of course, has already claimed this one too.
You will have to come back tomorrow to see the finished quilt. It is time for me to stop and work on dinner.

Basically, if you want to finish one before tomorrow, all that is left is to iron the tape to the interlining. Trim to size from the back. Put another piece of material on the back that is a bit larger and wrap the edges around to the front and blind stitch the edge. I will be back tomorrow to show you the finishing.

See you then.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Playing With a Hood....

No. Not the kind that carries a switch blade and threatens people. I mean the hood over my stove.

For a couple of years now we have been threatening to replace it because the finish was actually crackling and coming up in places on the slanted front. This morning I took action. Or I should say that the six year old took action..... I had started cleaning out kitchen cupboards(Yes. I am still in cleaning mode. I don't know what's wrong with me! Help!!!) Anyway, I was cleaning along....I had the fridge done and a few of the cupboards. Then I came to the ones over the stove hood. When I got up on the stepladder I realized just how bad the hood looked. Hey! I'm short and if I can't see it from the ground, it usually doesn't bother me

I picked at one of the blistered areas of paint and it came up. Beneath it, I discovered steel with just a hint of rust? Hmmmmm.....Steampunk.... This could be interesting..... I got out the retractable razor tool that I use to scrape off spills on the glass top of the stove and went to work. It couldn't get any worse that it was. I had thoughts of running to Ace Hardware and seeing if I could find some paint. But as I worked, I quite liked the color under the paint.

The six year old took over. I remembered that I had copper tape. Lots of copper tape. Mini-Me decided to experiment. After I got the tape where I wanted it, I put some nail heads in all of the intersections. I figure that when I tire of it, I can still go get a can of enamel or even get someone to install a new hood. For now, it looks a lot better than peeling paint and besides, it rescued me from cleaning for about a half hour.

Tessie likes it clean. Now she can slide down it and take Spike with her for the ride.

My other discovery for the day was a new magazine that I hadn't seen before. I was at the grocery store and found "Luxe Interiors and Design" It was less expensive than most home dec magazines and much larger. It is printed on nice, heavy paper and has lots of wonderful ideas inside. There are also a lot of glossy ads that will work well for decoupage and altered art....Well worth the six dollars.

My biggest problem is that Tessie got to it first. I haven't had a chance to sit down and look at it yet. She keeps yelling for me to come look at this and that. She says "There are so many good ideas for my new house!!!" Then she goes back to marking pages. She especially liked the one that she is standing in front of in the last photo. She has now added a greenhouse conservatory to the list of rooms. I may have to take the Harrison kit out from under the bed for her. The Madison is not even close to being big enough for all of the rooms she wants.

I am going to have to go now. I need to hide the magazine. She is only about half way through it. I looked over her shoulder. She has one of my old daily planners and had it about half filled with notes about what she wants. Make that "Hide the magazine and the notebook!"

I wonder if I could talk Zar into erasing the day from Tessie's memory. Maybe if I promise to go back to work on his cottage.......My work is never done....If it isn't one house, it's another!

See you tomorrow.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Sewing on the Square.

This is for the people that wanted a "Pattern" for the folded star quilt. As I said before, I can't really draw you a pattern. I can give you measurements for cutting and folding.

All of the strips that I cut were 3/4" wide. All of the folded corner pieces were 1" square.

I cut the base, white squares 1 1/4". I used the rotary cutter to make a fast job of the strips.

I decided to use a base piece to make the back of the quilt look a bit neater.

Down in the lower right of the photo you see the foundation piece with a black square added to the center.

I eliminated the thin white pieces around the center in the original quilt. It only added to the bulk. Instead I added a strip of the yellow all around. As you can see, I did not fold the piece in half. I folded about an eighth of an inch back before adding these strips. That's how I did all of the strips to try to get rid of some of the thickness.


Here you see that I have trimmed off the part of the yellow that will be covered by the next layer. I did this in every step. The original quilt was not trimmed at all and was very thick and stiff. It was also very messy on the back because there was no base fabric.

The next layer was done with green squares. In the photo you can see that I have cut off most of the second layer and left about 1/8" folded under.Then I turned the corners to the center point to make the square. I have one turned down in the photo.

I then sewed the top point of the green to the center of each side of the yellow. I stitched down the top sides of each square. I did this in white so that you could see where I stitched.

After they were stitched down, I carefully folded the bottom point back and trimmed away any excess green beneath it.

Next I stitched a folded strip of peach to each corner. I did this carefully to make the green appear to form a diamond on each side. Then I trimmed the edges to match the white foundation piece.

I decided to put a square of black in each corner using the folded square technique. This time I simply folded a strip that was turned under on the top edge and trimmed the corners when I finished stitching. I think that this would work on all of the squares if you wanted to do it this way.


Here's the finished block. It's not perfect, but with practice I think that it will get better. After all, this is the first try at sewing one.

Here's the back side of the foundation. I don't think that it looks too bad. Go look at the original if you don't believe me.

If you want to make it a whole quilt, just make as many squares as you need to cover your bed and sew them together with an eighth inch seam. Then bind it all with bias tape. You can use purchased tape or make it yourself.

One square was enough for me for today. Tessie wanted nothing to do with this project. She said it was too much like work.

See you tomorrow.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Finished With Fabric....

Finished with rearranging the big stuff anyway. The only stuff I have left is three drawers of miniature fabric. We won't discuss that today....

April got on my case to show you the closet in the computer room last week. I figured that I should keep going, while I was in the mood, cleaning out my stash.

I won't say that this particular closet has not been cleaned out, top to bottom, for a while. Maybe I shouldn't even tell you this, but at the back of one of the top shelves, I found a dollar off coupon for Friskies Cat Food that was dated 2001! I suspect that was April's. Why would I stash a coupon in her closet? I had to be on a step stool to see it, so that's my excuse. Being short, I didn't see it. Honest!

Tessie came in and wanted to help.....If you ask me, she was just looking for fabric for her next project(Spiderwort Manor is going to need curtains.).

She got in the way a few times, so I just piled the fabric on top of her. She didn't like that one little bit.

However, she did like the fact that I have a lot of red prints in the stash. Remember, that's the color of the month for her. Next month I will probably find her in the blue section.
Meanwhile, Spike got lost in the black and white prints. He found some with doggy footprints and at the very bottom of the pile, some with bones. Never mind that they are whole skeletons.....They are still bones to him.

I kept thinking "This is Saturday. I should be doing fun stuff.", but I did persevere. It wasn't easy with both Tessie and Spike helping. I finally put on http://www.hulu.com and let them watch an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. They both like that. Tessie likes Willow, the witch girl. Spike likes.....Yup, you guessed it. Spike, the vampire! He thinks that the character was named after him. That kept them quiet while I finished.

I am starting to get worried.....I am beginning to like the looks of clean closets and cupboards. The only trouble with this is, it takes time away from minis! Maybe I don't like neatness as well as I like minis.....We shall see.....

See you tomorrow.

Friday, September 25, 2009

A Way Out.....

Since I finished the workroom, it was only logical to work my way out to the rest of the house. I wanted to see if I could replicate the folded star quilt. In order to do this, I had to find some solid colored fabric.....In order to find solid color fabric, I had to venture into the hall closet just outside the workroom....Good intentions are often not good. I wound up taking everything out of the closet(mostly fabric) and starting from scratch. This closet is kind of around the corner and hard to take a photo as proof of work finished.

I can actually see everything in there now. Before it was like Fibber Mc Gee's closet....OK. I am sure that some people don't even know who that is. He was famous for having a closet that, when he opened the door, everything fell out on his head.

I did find the fabric in the process. I drew a diagram of the quilt blocks from yesterday's entry. Literally. I put the quilt away and already it has been swallowed up by the evil workroom.

I grabbed a pile of plain colors and a glue stick and went to work. I didn't expect to turn out a finished quilt the first try, so I just temporarily glued the pieces together to get an approximation of how to do it.

I will show you the steps. If you try it, please sew. Do Not Glue! Don't do as I do. Do as I say! That is, if you want a finished product that you can use. I didn't measure I just snipped off some strips and squares and went at it.

It was pretty easy. First I laid down the center piece. Then I folded the white strips with some glue inside to hold them. Next I cut some pink strips and did it again.


If I were sewing this, I think that I would cut about half of the back side of each strip off to lessen the bulk.


The third layer was the blue diamonds. I simply cut a square about 4 times the finished diamond and folded it diagonally, with the glue inside again. Then I folded the two corners down to the center point. I glued the folded point of one of these to each of the four sides, centering them.

Then I went back to strips and glued the light blue on to make the next layer.

The yellow layer was once again the folded diamonds like the blue. This time there was one in each corner and one in the center of each side.

The last layer was simply a single diagonal folded triangle, placed in each corner. They are alternate colors on the original.(See yesterday's photo.)

My assistant says that when I make her a quilt "we" are definitely going to sew it! She is not crazy about puce school glue. Too sticky!

Anyway, there you have it. In the original quilt, each block was a different color arrangement. The edge was simply more long strips to fit around the quilt and the final edge was wrapped around to the back and stitched down.

Maybe one of these days I will do one the proper way. For now, this will have to do. If any of you try it, I would love to see the results. Have fun!

See you tomorrow.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Finished.....Kind Of......

OK. I saved the closet and the floor in front of it for last. I haven't gone through every drawer and box yet. I figure that I can do that, one drawer at a time, in the next week/month/year....I will do it. Honest.

All I have left is this. It is a stack of baskets full of refuse that was left on the floor yesterday.
Amazingly enough, it didn't seem to grow while I was at the mini meeting!

My daughter always accuses me of saving some stuff for "seed". The first thing she always asks when I finish one of these cleaning sprees is...."What did you leave in the laundry basket?" It used to be "What's left in the garbage bag?" I changed to the basket because even if it's full of miscellaneous items, it looks so much better than the bag until I finish putting it all away.

I promise that I will get it all stowed away, maybe tomorrow....

I did find the "folded pieces" quilt. I wanted you to see it. If you click on it, you can see how it is put together. There are no actual seams in it. The pieces are all folded to size and put in with tiny stitches. Each square starts in the center with the black piece. Then four white, folded strips are stitched down to that with tiny stitches. After that, the fabric that forms the X is put down in four pieces then the diamonds at the edge of the black. Next the pieces that form the star itself are laid on and last the folded squares and triangles that form the background of the star. They are actually the closest to the top. The last step is adding the large corner triangles to make it look like a large block. The boarders are done in the same way. Then it is edged with a wrap around binding.

Here's the back of the piece. They definitely are not worried about neatness counting! Since they didn't trim any of the layers, it is quite thick in spots.

I have always planned to try this technique. I do believe that, if you trimmed it more than they did, it would make a nice mini quilt. As it is, I love it, but it is hard to get it to drape well on a bed. All of the stitches are by hand.

I guess that I should go rescue Tessie now. I asked her to hold the quilt up so that you could see the back. I think she is still under there somewhere. Gotta go before she starts yelling.

See you tomorrow.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Wednesday Again.....

Even though I had a meeting to go to this afternoon, I managed to get two more bookcases finished this morning. Well.....OK.....I didn't go through everything yet. I just straightened them up. They are the ones that have a lot of boxes of beads and other supplies. It will take ages to go through all of them. Hey! At least they look good for today. As I was going through them I found a box full of cabochons that were mounted and ready to be beaded.....Yes. I stopped and sorted through them.

The six year old then proceeded to pull at my sleeve until I took the box into the bedroom and showed them to Tessie. Being Tessie, the lover of all things sparkly, she immediately told me to stop messing around in the work room and do something with these.

She picked out the largest one and said that was the one that she wanted for her house....I told her that it wasn't a picture for the wall. It was jewelery, in the making. I had already done a couple of rows on that one so I decided to take it with me to the mini meeting.

We don't always stick to minis at the meeting. Sometimes some of us bring whatever we happen to be working on at the moment.

The two caboshons that you see with Tessie are ones that I made. They are easy to do. If you want to try it, here's how. I used the metal inside trays from eye and other make up. I just pried them out and dumped the makeup. Then I cut a bottom piece the shape of the tin from a magazine page and glued it in the bottom. I didn't seal these. You might want to do that if your magazine page is thin and you think that the other side will show through.

After the glue dried on the paper, I mixed up some two part epoxy resin and poured it into the tin. I made sure of the dome, drop by drop. Just enough to round it off without overflowing. I let them set for a few days and then they were shiny and ready to cover in bead work.

I took the one that Tessie liked with me this afternoon. Here you can see what I have so far. When I finish the beading part, I will cut away the stabilizer that I am stitching on and put a leather backing on the piece.


I haven't decided what it will be yet. Maybe a pendant. If Tessie has her way it will be a big gaudy wall hanging.

I am going back and work on it some more now.

See you tomorrow.





Welcome!


There are three more people at the party today.

We have Birgitta Of Kul Kort Och Kort Om Kul http://kulkort.blogspot.com/ Nice minis as well as other interesting photos on her site.

Next there is Cockerina of Le Minis di Cockerina http://www.ecucinando.it/forum/blog.php?u=2 Neat minis, including the tiniest recipe box and magnifying glass that I have ever seen.

The third one is Aru with a blog of the same name http://auroc.blogspot.com/ She has some interesting minis of her own and some beautiful furniture inherited from her grandmother.

Do stop by and look at their blogs.

Welcome to the party!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Cozy Corner....


This is the corner. I am now officially over half done, if you don't count the center of the room. We won't talk about that part.

I finished a third bookcase. It holds lots of my bead work supplies. I also did the drawers to the left. They hold various paints and papers. At least now I can find about half of my stuff.....I am getting there.

Tessie is still supervising. I am beginning to think that she is a real help. She has gotten me back to "Fly Lady" techniques. If you aren't familiar with her, go look at her website. I think that she wrote a couple of books too, but my friend Jo, and I discovered her on the net years ago. http://www.flylady.com/ Neither of us joined the site, but we gleaned some really good ideas for keeping ahead of the mess. I just went and looked at it and it looks like it has grown into a huge business for the lady that started it.

Tessie has the right idea. Cleaning in short spurts instead of trying to get it all done in one day is one of the main ideas.

I don't know if it is still on the site, but there was one recommendation that neither of us agreed with. It seems that Fly Lady thinks that you should always get up, get fully dressed and put on shoes to clean. As you know, I am like Tessie. The shoes are illegal when I am inside the house. We never did figure out what the benefit of wearing shoes to clean could be.

OK back to the subject at hand. I get a reward when I finish cleaning an area. Today it was a kit that Tessie found for a muffin stand. Someone gave it to me a while ago. When I opened it, I found a couple of pieces missing. Oh well.....If I can't ad lib by now, I should have my mini scout badges taken away. I simply cut a couple of pieces of wood that would suffice for the missing pieces.

Tessie, being in boss mode, ordered Spike to sit by the stand and model his hat. Have you ever seen a more forlorn dog? He hated every minute of the photo shoot. In fact, when Tessie wanted photos of the other hats that I finished yesterday, he refused to wear it. He went and got a party hat that I made last New Year's Eve.


Yes, he still looks ridiculous, but at least it doesn't have roses on the brim. Poor dog.

I have permission from the boss to go do something else for the rest of the day......She did slyly suggest that I could break open the kit for Spiderwort Manor. I won't tell you what the reply to that was. Let's just say that it's not going to happen today and leave it at that.

I did find a lot of little stuff that will be used for the Clockwork Cottage, so the morning was not wasted.

See you tomorrow.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Another One Bites the Dust!

This morning I fought with all my might against cleaning in the workroom. I was so desperate that, when I got back from shopping, I cleaned out my half of the garage. Yes. We kind of have an imaginary line down the center of the garage and take care of our own side. That way I don't toss anything that's on Walter's side and he doesn't toss out the very important stuff on my side.You know, like pieces of Styrofoam, cardboard and a stack of sandpaper that I bought at a garage sale for a quarter. How could I resist? It was new, full sheets and a two inch pile. Anyway, I can actually walk all the way around my car now without snagging on something.

After I finished that, there was no excuse not to go into the dreaded workroom. The "another one" that I refer to is this bookcase. Hey! Don't knock it! I also cleaned the floor around it and can now walk in and out without tripping.

I will now show you the "after" shot of the view from a couple of days ago.....No! You can't see the other side of the room yet. At the rate that I am going, it will be about two weeks from now, however it will be really clean. Honest!

Thanks to Tessie, I am not going completely around the bend cleaning. She is keeping a close eye on things. As I was doing that bookcase she decided that the next thing I should do was not clean anymore. She found four straw hats that need decorating. She says that she will keep three and Spike can have the fourth....How generous....They aren't hers yet and she is giving them away. Although I do think that the hat does something for him....

Now you know what I will be doing between laundry and cleaning for the rest of the day. Tomorrow there will be more finished hats. I guess that I will have to make some hat stands to go with them.

See you then.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

OK. That's Enough Of That!

I started out with reallllly good intentions this morning, but then I usually do. It's just that once things get started I stop and ask myself "What was I thinking?"

I went back to straightening in the workroom. I started in a different corner this time. I thought that would give me new incentive....I have one bookcase totally cleaned out and re booked. I then moved to the left and did the little hanging shelf.

I cringed when I got to the desk. Someone has been piling things on it for a month.....I looked up the date for the last cleaning. (See? Blogs are good for something.) It was the middle of August. And to answer your question before you ask...No. I didn't finish then.

I decided that if I am going to be serious about this, there should be a method to my madness. I am putting books together by subject, yet again. It seems that there are gremlins that come in at night and their job is to carry books from room to room and just stick them in any place that they can find a spot big enough.

Anyway, back to the desk. From this photo you should be able to tell why I dislike working in this room. It is so dark.
By the time I got there, Tessie had pulled up a chair and foot stool to watch. What you are seeing is the 'after' shot. She couldn't even find a spot big enough for that little chair when I started. She was miffed, to say the least.

I am so proud. I cleaned out the pencil and pen pots, all the drawers and even underneath where I keep lost and lonely kits for room boxes and smaller houses. It is getting low under there. I must have done a few things and finished them this year.

After I finished the desk I had good intentions. I was going to move on to the next bookcase.....Then I looked back where Tessie was sitting. That was a silly thing to do. She had decided that I should stop and go work on the wire cutter handles some more, and she had enlisted help. Now I ask you, could you work with Mookie staring at you with a look that said he was starving and needed food and Tessie staring off into space, mumbling "She's never going to finish, never going to finish. Never. Never. Never......"

At least now I have two good excuses to quit for the day....I have to feed the cat and quiet the witch. I can't stand the staring and mumbling. I quit!

See you tomorrow.




Saturday, September 19, 2009

Use It Up. Wear It Out.......

I am, once again, taking a wrecking ball to my workroom.

Tessie said that I had to show you this photo to let you see what a huge mess it was. Yup. That's her down at the bottom. I guess, from her point of view, it is gigantic.

She told me that I had better get my act together and do it, or she would. I don't want that. She is too much like April. If she had her way, I would toss about half of what is in there. I know I would just have to go search for replacements for what I threw out three days from now. It's not going to happen.

I kicked Tessie out and started putting things in their places. Then it happened.....She sneaked back in when I wasn't looking and started to "Help!" It's all her fault that I didn't get it finished....


She found my leftover beads. I immediately was harangued about not sticking to my principles. "What principles?" I asked. Not that I don't have any. I just didn't know which ones she was talking about.

It seems that she has heard me quote the "Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do or do without." so many times that it must have stuck in her tiny mind.

I found her in a bead tray that I made in a pottery class several years ago. She had dumped out some of my leftovers.

I have a bad habit of just dumping the remains of any project into a cookie jar.....I think it must weigh a couple of pounds these days. I am too lazy to separate the beads into their original containers, so in they go.

She went into "boss" mode. "You ARE going to do something with these, aren't you? They cost money, you know."
"I will some day soon...." I went on cleaning.
It got worse. I looked back and she was in the jar with a pair of wire cutters that I had started to bead(handles).

"Enough cleaning! You need to finish these! You can't use them this way." She had a point. It's hard to use them with the thread and needle hanging from the half finished handle.

Well.......I am now going to go finish the wire cutter handles. Tessie said I had to do it. I am not going to get in an argument over whether I should clean or bead. I may be crazy, but come on! Which would you choose???

I am no fool......I will follow Tessie's instructions to the letter if it stops the insanity of cleaning.

I will try to finish the handles. Then maybe Tessie can find something else for me to finish.... This cleaning thing could take a while...............

See you tomorrow.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Hat Trix....

After all of the fudging I have been doing for the past week, I thought that I should give you something to play with.

This morning, to make up for the shoddy treatment, I made Tessie a new hat. I thought that you would like to see how I did it.

I pulled out the hat straw that was AWOL for a few years( I have been keeping a close eye on it since I found it.) and started pulling strings.

Not everyone knows about the magic string in the edges of straw braid. There is a handy, dandy string very close to each edge. Make a tiny cut lengthwise on the side that you want to pull, so that it will be easier to grasp. Then just pull.

The braid will not gather enough to close a hole in the top of the hat, so be sure to cut off a small piece to glue on the under side where the hole is.

Some people glue the hats all the way. I only do it at the start and finish. I find that I have an easier time of shaping them if I "lace" them together with sewing thread and a blunt tapestry needle. I try to get the needle between the straw.

I pull on the string as I go. You can do this from either end.

On this one, I only did the top round with the thread on that end. I did the rest from the other end so that I could shape it as I went along.

In the third photo you can see that I have pulled the thread for the first and second row and then did one row that was not pulled so that it formed the sides of the crown. Then I started pulling again when I wanted the brim to flair. All the way along I kept shaping as I went. I got it going flat for the brim by pulling the inner side of the straw.
When I finished, I tucked the end under at the back and glued it as well as stitching.

I then decorated the back with roses and a bow......I did say the back. Tessie would only wear it sideways. She said that she couldn't see the roses if they were in the back.....So on the side they went.

You can see where the straw ends and is glued under. Normally I would put some ribbon tails hanging down, but Tessie grabbed it and put it on before I could do so.

OK.....Now you try one! They are pretty easy after you practice on a couple.

See you tomorrow.