One Thing Leads to Another... And Another...

Pay no attention to the man painting the wall on the screen!

 I was tired of looking at the four frames to the left of the TV in the bedroom...

So I took them down this morning. 

In their place, I decided to put the two wire towers up that I had there before.  New things inside...

So of course I decided on my collection of carved Chinese cork.  The smaller pieces nicely fit into the tower on the left.

The leftover pieces went on the drawers below the TV.

That led to moving my favorite piece of embroidery. 

I think that I put this piece on the blog, soon after I found it. 

April bought it for me in a thrift shop here in town.  It came in it's own padded case...

It is probably the finest piece I own... It is on fine silk mesh and is done with one hair fine thread of silk at a time...

Someone told me that the Chinese used to make these with a person sitting on either side of the embroidery, passing needles back and forth.  I don't know if it's true, but it would make sense...

If you spin the screen around, the cat is gray on the other side and facing the opposite direction...Chasing the same bug going in the opposite direction...

 However it was done, it is amazing.  I have never seen another one like it.  The little red rectangle is a signature printed on the silk.  I have no idea what it says.  I just like the piece and wanted to put it where I could see it every day. 

It was on a top shelf of the book case in the family room where I didn't look at it very often.

 I doubt that you will be able to see the rest of the collection, but it looks pretty good displayed in the left tower... Lots of little trees, bridges, pagodas and cranes.

I started filling the right tower,  I didn't have anymore cork carvings, but I do have a LOT of antique ivory crochet hooks... Some of which were carved in the orient around the turn of the last century.

Besides the hooks, there are awls and a few other pieces.  Now I have to go hunt up my carved ivory needle case. 

The implement at the front is a tool for doing tambour  embroidery.  There are three sizes of needles.  One is the finest I have ever seen... It probably could use the hair sized silk thread from the cat screen!

The three needles fold up between the wire frame and store that way, or one can  be left out and guided through the end of the tin cover for working. The case acts as a handle.

The square tool in the front is also for tambour, but for thread more like knitting worsted.  I think that both were from the teens or the 20s of the last century, just from the design of the tools themselves.

I did have help with the hanging of the boxes that I moved. 

Kota sat on the table and meowed. One meow for a little higher and two for a little lower. He just nodded his head to the left or the right to indicate the direction... Blame him if they aren't in the right place and correctly centered.

I am going back to see what other trouble I can get into now. 

See you tomorrow.

Instant Gratification.....Almost

I should never clean my workroom.....When I do, I find projects that I have started and not finished. Now, depending on how you look at it, this can be good or it can be very bad.

This morning I went in there and I made the mistake of picking up one of the 8" shadow boxes that I had started a year or so ago. I had already built a foam core insert. I had cut the wallpaper to fit. Then I hit a wall. I couldn't figure out what I wanted to put inside.

About the same time I picked up my work box that has the purse supplies and finished purses in it. I kept thinking that it is a shame not to put the purses out somewhere so that I could look at them once in a while. The wheels started turning. Shadow box + purses = a collection. I went to the furniture department and found a shelf unit. I had used it for something at one time and now it needed a lot of tender loving care.

My daughter calls my workroom the "Mom Store". There is good reason. If she needs anything crafty, chances are she can find it in there. That way it is free. I treat the room the same way. I buy things at garage sales and thrift shops as well as at half price sales. Then I store them away until they are needed. Thus the furniture dept., the purse supply dept. and lots of other departments that have various needed, but not necessarily now, things by category.

I went to the molding and strip wood dept.(drawer) and found some chair rail, crown molding, baseboard and tiny cove molding. I cut and glued some small crown molding under the top. Then small chair rail to the uprights and the baseboard went around the bottom.

I didn't apply the cove until I got the unit stained. I stained the cove separately and then glued it on.

After finishing the shelving unit with varnish, sanding, varnish, sanding, varnish, I glued it into the foam core box. Then I picked out some purses to fill it up.

Here's the finished unit. I left the glass out to take the photo. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to see the collection. It is now finished and I am ready to hang it somewhere where I can see it every day, probably the bedroom.

You may be asking by now what happened to the basket shop. It is sitting on the table where you last saw it. It is patiently waiting for it's turn. I am torn between working on it and doing some more cleaning in the workroom...... Right now the workroom is winning. It is bigger than the basket shop. It is screaming loudly for attention. The basket shop is only whispering.

At least I finished something today. Granted, it wasn't what I have been working on, but I did start it first, so it's only fair that it gets finished first.

Hand me that whip and chair. I am going in! I will conquer the workroom!

See you tomorrow if I make it out alive!

Put a Cork In It!

Sorry to be so late today. I had the mini Wednesday Witches here today. We generally had a good time eating and not getting a lot of minis done. I did teach one of the members to make miniature tassels. That's something that I am going to have to put on here one of these days. Not tonight tho.

I am going to do a fast one tonight. I have some minis that I started collecting years ago just because I am fascinated what the Chinese artists can do with cork. It started innocently enough. I saw a small scene in a thrift shop. Then I saw another and another. They were inexpensive and beautiful. The fan shaped one was the first. I think it was priced at about 2.00. Someone got rid of it because the fan shaped mat was water stained and in bad shape. I brought it home and made a new one and covered it with white Chinese brocade. It was as good as new. I picked them up here and there until I have about 10 different ones now.

I have two of these little domed pagodas. I think that I got them at an import store. I started thinking mini scene usage with them. These are only about 2" tall. In this shot you can see the incredible carving. The details are like that in all of them. My photos don't do them justice.

Some of them have cranes in the scenes for good luck. I would imagine that at one time the cranes were ivory. Now they are synthetic. The leaves on the trees are perfectly carved and the pine trees even have needles.

This is the back side of one that is about 4" long at the base and 2" long at the top. I wanted you to see how the cranes and leaves are attached.

The best one is the last one that I bought. It is a 4 panel screen. It is perfect size for a 1/12 scale room. Each panel is 2 1/2" wide including the frame and 6 1/2" tall. Someday I am going to make a Chinese room for the screen. For now, it sits on a shelf where I can see it and enjoy it every day. I can't imagine doing the intricate carving that is in these pieces. I do hand carved beds and other furniture. I don't think that I would even attempt this.

OK. I have filled up enough space for today......Keep an eye out for minis everywhere. They will pop up when you least expect them!

See you tomorrow.

From Russia With Love

Since I am still working on flooring and painting I won't bore you with photos.

Instead I will amuse you with five minis that my daughter brought back from Russia on one of her trips.

These will never be put in a mini scene, even though they are perfect 1/12 scale.

They were made by a Russian artisan from scratch, by hand. They are all hand painted. They are each signed on the back, although I couldn't tell you what the man's name is. Each one is built like it's real counterpart. They are strung with the correct number of strings just like the real thing and would you believe they can all be plucked to make music? The little heart shaped wooden picks can be drawn across the strings to make music. No. They aren't tuned but they still make a tinkling sound when they are strummed.

When my daughter gave them to me, she made me promise never to take them out of their frames. I don't think I would have anyway, but she knows me well enough to think I might....

Be sure to poke the thumbnail so that you can see them up close and personal. They are truly beautiful.

This is my contribution for the day. Short and sweet. See you tomorrow.