Easier to Bribe Her!!!

I had a bit of trouble finding Letty this morning.

I finally figured out that she went home to her own bed to sleep, along with Spike Jr..

I guess it made sense. She really only knows that as her home...

Then a while later I caught up with her trying to get her living quarters straight. 

No wonder she wanted to take the job when I offered. I can see why she doesn't like living there.

All she has to do is turn around and half of the furniture moves and falls.

I am thinking that I wouldn't want to live there either. I am going to have to do something new for her living quarters.

I did try changing places with her for a few minutes.  Not at all fun.  Quite uncomfortable for me... I felt squashed... I am sure that she felt just the opposite.

I am going to offer her the job of Super Spy!  I don't think that I a cut out for this shrinking stuff.

If I can get her to do it for me, I think that is the way to go. 

She spies. I build her a new house or trailer and we are both happy. The only thing is, I am going to get it in writing and in triplicate that she is working for me and not for Tessie!

That will all be worked out and she can start as soon as she signs the papers. Here's to the new system. I think that Tessie will tell her things that she would never tell me.  Wish me luck!!! I am going to need it.

See you tomorrow.

Don't Forget to Poke the Pictures!

I always forget that some of the new people reading this aren't aware of the fact that, if they poke the photos, they will enlarge. That goes for all of the photos on the blog. If you are new, try it.  You will like it.

I am still finishing the computer room closet.  I have to be at Witches at 1:00PM. 

So I don't have a lot of time to do minis.  That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.

I cleaned the floor in the Embroiderer's Cottage this morning...(AKA The Crooked House.) 

I went to plug it in to take photos and the lights kept blinking on and off... I guess that I am going to  have to find a way to get into the roof and fix the electrical.

I have the feeling that it is a bad transformer... If so, it is going to be an interesting fix.  English wiring vs. American.  We shall see/

Meanwhile Lettice is going to be in the dark for a while...

It really doesn't make a difference.  She doesn't do much embroidering these days. 

Mostly she sits on the doorstop and watches the goings on in the rest of the house.

As for me, I have to get back at the closet and then get ready for minis.

Enjoy the picture show.  I am going back to work.

See you tomorrow.

Mind the Gap...

For those of you that have not been to London, the title is one that I picked up from riding the subway there...It is all over the station platforms and on the door of the cars.  There is a gap between the platform and the car when the doors are open and you can easily trip....I did. Just once.  I learned quickly.

Maybe I should have built the cabinet on a backwards slant...There is a gap!  Oh well. 

I was a little sloppy with the glue on the inside of the door.  Maybe I will blame it on Nellie spilling something. 

I don't think that it will really matter, as I plan not to open it too often.

I promised you two kinds of hinges.  You are only getting the paper ones today... I figure that most people know how to do the metal ones and there are plenty of tutorials around on how to do it.

I opted for card stock hinges.  I used the black textured scrapbook card stock that I used in the bookworm bookcase in Zar's room.  I used the pattern that you see on the drawings and simply cut two  of them out of the card stock.  I did some texture on them with a tiny ball stylus and put nail heads in with the tip of a mechanical pencil.

To install them so that they would work, I bent the hinge part back. I glued the front part of the  hinges to the front of the door.

Then, being careful not to put glue on the door, I glued the bent part to the inside frame of the door.  In the above photo, the glue is still a tiny bit wet.  I will go back and cut off the excess or glue it to the inside of the frame when it is totally dry.

Here you see the front of the door.  The knob is simply a punched out flower and a piece of the same paper rolled into a tube and trimmed.

If I really want to open the door, I will slide an Exacto blade into the crack and pull it open....I don't intend to do that too often.  The card stock is very sturdy and will hold up for years.  And it looks like wrought iron. 

I almost forgot to show you my latest wire wrap.  It was a very plain pendant watch that I bought at Walmart, years ago..

What can I say?  I was bored.  It was there and so was the wire...

Now all I have to do is find a chain for it...

See you tomorrow.

A Cabinet Meeting....

 I got the wood cut and part of the cabinet put together before Nellie showed up.  She wanted to criticize help.  And she did...

She really didn't find a lot to complain about. I made the cabinet taller, by a half a foot in her size...

I ended up using half scale molding for the trim on the frame and filled in the corners with cove.

I made it so that it will fit flat against the wall.  The nice thing about this house is it doesn't have any bottom molding around the walls, so it will truly fit against the wall.

I did make the door in three strips, so I braced it on the inside.

I cut a bottom and middle shelf.  I know the bottom one is not straight...It's not glued in yet.  Only the case itself is glued so far.

I will stain the whole thing before finishing the gluing process.

When I get to the hinges, I will tell you how to do it, without metal... and with if you want to get picky.

Today is Wednesday and there will be a meeting of witches, so I don't think that I will be doing much more.  I can't take this with me to the meeting.  Stain stinks...

Witches don't like that.

Nellie is in there muttering about a writing slant for her design work...I don't think that she considers the house finished yet....Unfortunately...

See you tomorrow.

Scooterpies ARE Too Food!

"A few anomalies can't hurt! In fact, I have grown to love them...You will too, Nellie."  This was Tessie, talking her way into Nellie's place this morning...

"We knew you didn't want a housewarming party, so we took up a collection and brought you a care package instead." That was Zar.

As I looked on, the Terrible Two invaded Nellie's new home.

I couldn't say for sure, but I do believe that she was grateful. After all, she spent the night with only one pear and no chamber pot. I think that Widget showed her his litter box....Hey!  It's better than the floor!

With the arrival of Tessie and Zar, she now has food, a chamber pot and a puppy to keep her company.  She doesn't understand why they named the puppy "Winston", but she agreed to keep the name if she could keep the bulldog.  Then she asked if they knew where she could purchase a large oak table and more dogs....She neglected to mention that these were to protect her from invasion.

As Tessie unloaded the gifts, she explained..."We went around and took up a collection."(that should read, pilfered a collection). 

As I watched in amazement this morning, The Terrible Two went from house to house and shelf to shelf and "borrowed" things that they thought that Nellie might need...

To be fair, they did take things from their own houses...For instance, the Scooterpies and Beer were from Zar's  Steampunk Tudor Trailer. 

Tessie gave up a case of Pepsi and some Chocolate Covered Cherries.

Elsewhere, people are missing a load of can goods and a can opener, other boxes of modern food and a chamber pot that was in one of my drawers...

I am going to have to send them back out for dog food.   If you give someone a dog, it is only fair that you supply some food to get them started.

Walter helped me move the house this morning.  Unfortunately where it was sitting before, in the family room, has no place to plug in the transformer. 

So I moved it to the top of the sewing/embroidery chest in the bedroom.  There, it will have lights and be at eye level besides.

I didn't plan it, but it is the perfect size for the top of the chest.

The chest it is sitting on has never been used for jewelry.  I got it at Walmart at an after Christmas sale, years ago. 

It was a tool chest for a while.  When that didn't work out anymore, I moved all of the unfinished mini embroidery and thread into it.  It works well for that...The only trouble is, it holds too many unfinished projects...

Maybe I should move this stuff to a smaller place.  I might get more finished, instead of starting new stuff.

This is what I did yesterday afternoon.  A break from minis was in order...  Its a copper wire and goldstone ring. I am still practicing.  Sooner or later I will get it right.  I need to learn to wrap the small wires tighter.  I am getting there a little bit at a time.

Now I have to go figure out what to do next....Should I finish something or start something?  Don't bother to answer that question.... I will just wander around and find something that catches my interest...Wish me luck!

See you tomorrow.

No Trespassing!!!

Good Morning.  My name is Nellie and I will be your tour guide today. 

I refused to have a housewarming, because I know what those people do to a house here.

This is MY house and I intend to keep it well. 

Here you see it with the front wall open...Why anybody would want a front wall that swung away from the house is beyond me.  It will be closed and plastered later this morning.(Casey here.  She doesn't know I am looking on.  It will NOT be plastered.)

As you can see, I have pleasant accommodations fit for only one person. Me. 

Here's a little closer view of the whole house.  I do see one thing that Casey forgot to put in....I need a chamber pot!

She has thought of most other things though. Oh!  I could use some more food and a spoon.  Eating without utensils  could lead to crumbs and I certainly don't approve of crumbs...It leads to mice and other vermin, you know.

On to the everyday configurations of the little house....Did I mention that it is serious need of repair?  It tips to one side greatly!  I fear that it may fall down around my head at any minute.

This is how it looks in the evenings.  After a twelve hour day of stitchery, I am ready for a rest.

So far, all there is on the shelves is one pear..."Casey!  I need food!!!"

This is where I work.  I set up the frame by the front window.  It has the most light in the house.  Candlelight just doesn't work for fine stitchery as a primary source of light.

I am working on a coverlet in crewel work.

This is where I draft my patterns.  Here, I must work by candle light.  The windows aren't accessible  for light here. 

I tried all kinds of arrangements of the furniture and all of the other ways were impossible.

I believe that I will be happy here, as long as I can keep the riff raff away from my door.

Several times whilst Casey was working on the house, I found myself unable to get out of the house.  Someone put a large oak table in front of the door and stationed some dogs and even a tiger there.  I suppose that they were to keep me in, but I looked at it as a way to keep the riff raff out.  It worked well...Maybe I will find out where the table and animals came from and hire them out to stand guard over my front door all of the time.  It could be a boon.

Anyway,  I fear that I have picked up a few vulgar phrases from the people around here.  I do apologise if any of my language has been inappropriate during the tour.

Thank you for joining me.  Now get out!  I want to be alone.

(Casey here again....Sorry for the curtness of Nellie.  Now you see what I had to put up with while working on the cottage. The candle light is much less glairing than it was.  I painted the bulbs with a wash of yellow ochre.  They still look a bit bright in the photos, but not in real life.  I hear Nellie shouting.  What's wrong now?)

See you tomorrow.

Cheaters Always Prosper....

 I confess.  Sometimes I cheat.  I rewired the pewter candlestick and when I did, I had to use American wiring, instead of English....Only one problem.

Our wiring is much thicker than the English kind. 

The candlestick wouldn't sit flat on the table...

This one was an easy one to cheat on.  The table is a cheap one, so I simply drilled a hole where I wanted the candle to sit and ran the line through and out the back....Which was formerly the front, but I didn't want drawers, so I turned it around.  Did you get all that?

I put a candlestick on the mantle downstairs. Oops. I forgot to add the mantle.  OK.  I will put that on my list.  I ran the wire down the back of that candlestick.  It is one of those metal miniatures that I painted brass. I then ran the cord to the back edge of the fireplace and down to the bottom.  It comes back into the back of the fireplace and out the back wall.  Well hidden.

I think that I am going to dim the candle light by painting the bulbs.  They are way brighter than the other ones were. 

Did I mention that I took the wire out upstairs?  It was simply a piece of heavier dollhouse lighting...One long piece.

No patching to do.  The hole for it was in the ceiling, behind a beam...

That piece of wire is now my lead wire from the house to the transformer.

See what I mean about the bright candles?  They drown out anything in the immediate area. 

I cut the spools apart and put them in one of the drawers that were in the table. 

We are essentially done with this except for a bit of landscaping to cover the bottom of the chimney where it floats above the ground.  Lots of bushes.  That should do it.  Maybe a few weeds.

Anyway, Nellie requested that I not tell anybody that her home was done....She saw what they did to the Witches' Warehouse yesterday....And they are still at it. 

I am NOT cleaning that up.  The witches will have to do it themselves.

 She, who shall remain nameless is still hanging from the broom landing pad.  Everybody flies in over her head and lands inside the door.. It's just a good thing that she had her share of bug juice before the party.  She seems to be hanging in there well.

See you tomorrow.

How NOT to Wire Your House!!

I woke up with the idea that the stupid wire coming down from the ceiling could be eliminated altogether. That's when I tried going from the bottom up. I ran a line from the bottom fireplace to the transformer to make sure that light worked...It did. So far, so good.  Please ignore the mess beside the house....It has nothing to do with wiring...

Then I ran a line to the candlestick on the second floor and the fireplace there... Mind you, these are separate lines.  I am not sure where I am going with them, so I cut them long just to be safe.

Those both worked....Still good.  I connected another light to the mix to make sure that it also worked. 

It is not in a candlestick yet, so I just attached it with everything else.

About now, there are a bunch of pro wiring people out there that are about to faint and probably waiting for the crooked house to explode in a puff of smoke.

This is the mess that is my wiring at present.  All of one bunch of wires from each light attached to one side of the transformer and all of the other side of the split wires to the other side....HOW NOT TO WIRE!  I am just testing things out.

By the way, when you are hooking wires to a transformer, make it easy on yourself.  If you hook them left to right around the screws they will be attached and unattached easily.  You want the wire to go in the direction that the screw is turning. 

Before I learned that trick by trial and error, I said a few bad words when trying to attach the wires.  Now it is easy as pie.....How is pie easy?

Anyway, I am well on my way to the finish line.  April and Amare are on their way over, so I won't get anything more done this morning. 

See you tomorrow.

No Problem....

The piece of paper is not the hearth.  It is to protect the floor while I make a mess.  And I will.

I plastered the fireplace this morning.

Last night, I found the solution to my problem with the frame in Saint-Aubins.   It has been a long time since I read it.  I went back to the part where they set up the frames for work.

It was a "duh" moment.  I had forgotten about their set up.  Of course this would be in a workshop with lots of people working on the same piece of embroidery, but if it works for them...You know how the saying goes.

It worked for Nellie too.  The glue wasn't dry so I cheated and took the photo quickly, so as not to knock the shelf off of the wall.

It seems that all of their frames were mounted with a shelf on the wall and a saw horse.

Problem solved.  I cut down the cross bars on the frame.  It's not likely that Nellie is going to embroider anything that won't fit on this frame.

She was a bit miffed about it though.  I had forgotten how her temper runs hot and cold.  Right now she is haranguing me for a larger house, instead of the smaller frame. 

I think that is just an excuse.  Remember?  I have been through this with Tessie a number of times.

It also dawned on me that she probably wouldn't leave the frame up when she was done for the day.

So now it is arranged so that the frame can sit in the corner by the fireplace on the other side and the sawhorse simply slides back against the shelf.

Now that I have that done, full speed ahead.

I can wire today.

I finished 22 spools of thread yesterday and promptly lost them. Thank goodness, I had not cut them apart yet.

It took a while, but I finally found them in the channel that is at the back of the plastic thread box.  I looked through the box several times and never thought to look "outside the box".

Anyway, Nellie hung up some of her embroidery patterns behind the table in the bedroom....Those old square nails make horrible holes.  I do hope that she doesn't cover the whole wall.

I added a 40 count rug to the bedside and a candlestick to the table....I just glued the candle in and didn't notice until now that it didn't stay where it was supposed to.  Oops.

Nellie is following me around nagging for me to finish.  At one point she grabbed the stick of spools and threatened to beat me around the ankles....I sure am glad that she can't reach any higher. 

The advantages with her is she doesn't know any of Tessie's tricks.  She has to walk, not zap.  No spells.  Just a lot of commotion and yelling.  She is easy enough  to contain.  I can just slam the front door of her house.  Put the big oak table in front of it and station a couple of dogs and a tiger on it to keep her in.  Yup.  Definitely a lot easier to handle than Tessie....

Speaking of Tessie, I haven't seen her all morning....Quiet is not good, where Tessie is concerned...

I had better go see what she is up to now.

See you tomorrow.

A Little More to the Left....

I realized this morning that I have to build up the fireplace on the ground floor, before I can wire the place.

I found a scrap of ceiling tile and cut out the same size and shape as the original fireplace.

I thought that the 1/2" would do it, but when I put it in, I was not so sure...

It still looks very shallow.  This would be Nellie's cooking fireplace.  I think that it should be a bit deeper...

The problem is....When I put in the surround, I have to make Nellie shift to the left a bit.

Even that far to the left takes her out of the window and sunlight...It's hard to embroider when there isn't enough light.  I speak from experience on that count.

She's in there.  She's just behind the wall now.

When I added a thickness of foam core, it made it even worse.  Not a lot of room to walk around. 

I know that's silly, but I have to have enough room to move around the room.  It's like I live there  and I don't like it when I have to climb over things.

With her in this position, the door doesn't open far enough to comfortably walk into the room.  She would have to shimmy around the edge of the door.

I am going to have to think about furniture placement and walkways for a bit.

While I am waiting for a solution to pop into my head, I wound spools of thread....Yes that is correct.  I went and checked.  Saint Aubins was winding spools with embroidery thread with a fancy thread winder in 1770, so I am guessing that the spools had been used before that.  It may not be totally correct, but in a lot of things about embroidery, practices have not changed since the middle ages. I think that the spools would be the logical way to store threads.  Skeins of short pieces of gold thread were stored wrapped in paper. 

I don't know where Tessie is, but Nellie seems to be taking lessons from her on how to annoy people.  She has been rummaging through my silk fabric.  She is ordering by the yard...It's just a good thing that a yard in her world is 1/12 of a yard in my world. 

Between that, cutting fabric and pricking patterns, I should be keeping busy until I solve the positioning problem...Wish me luck.

See you tomorrow.

Fifty Shades of Gray....

 That's probably what I have on the bricks now.

I started on the left side and worked around...I tend to work like I read.  Left to right.

Here is one and a half panels done and the rest is like it was.  I found out that the bricks were painted with some kind of water soluble paint, so I had to be very careful.  There wasn't any kind of sealer on the bricks at all.

 I didn't do a lot of changing.  I just darkened the grout a bit.  Now it looks a lot more like the half timbers that we saw in England. 

As for the chimney, I think that it blends in with the rest of the house better now. 

I am still wondering why it was built so that it hangs about a quarter of an inch above the bottom of the building...

I got a pretty good match on the bricks on the chimney. Not perfect, but close enough.  Maybe a few touch ups after everything is put back together.

Some of you are wanting to know about the wiring....I wouldn't advise you to follow the route that I am taking for wiring this.  I am having to cobble together some of it because of the single wire that they had in the original.  I am going to have to do some splicing here and there to get five different things lit.  It was only wired for one ceiling fixture.

There will be two wall sconces, one candlestick and a fire in each fireplace.

The little blobs that you see on the floor are English coal fire fixtures.  I am not sure if they will be workable.

The three other fixtures blew out when I tried them in the Bloomie's box.  I have cut the candles out of them and am in the process of rewiring them...I am not sure that the English wiring is compatible with the US transformers.

Hang in there until I wire something else and you will see how I normally do it.

I have to go see if I can, once again, do wiring without electrocuting myself...

See you tomorrow.

Silk and Brick...

Yesterday, after a lot of looking, I decided that the George III chairs were composites of known examples.  So anything George III or earlier would qualify as an acceptable pattern.

I started with some 16th century and earlier patterns from one of the Dover books and went from there.

This is actually a border pattern.  I have used the design in rugs before. 

I started messing with it on #40 silk gauze and I think that it will work into a nice chair seat.  I will probably do some more pattern in it.  Designing as I work....

Now, about that chimney.  I pried off a bit of the plaster that came off before. 

I also started poking and prodding a spot further up on the chimney. I will either do bricks with the file folders that I used on the Rusty Needle quilt shop or...I may just decide to paint it.

This is the side of Walter's Above Par golf shop lamp.

What you see here is all completely flat. If I did the same thing on the chimney, I could match the bricks on the house itself.

It will probably have to be a bit darker to make it look old and used....I am contemplating putting a bit of soot here and there on the rest of the house.  Just don't tell the guy that built it!

It is just too new and pristine looking for my taste.  London was not a clean place in Tudor times. 

Anyway, that's it for today....April and Amare are on their way over.  Only one mini to play with...That's Amare.

See you tomorrow.

Two Out of Three. Not Bad?

Guess where I am this morning....Yup.  Back in the workroom. 

Remember the two tin wall sconces and the candlestick that I tried out in Zar's room?  I threw them in a basket in the workshop when I decided not to use them.

They would be perfect for the crooked house.  I found two.  Thus the title.  They will have to have new bulbs if I use them.  They died while I was trying them out in the other room.

I can't for the life of me, find the third one.  So...The workroom will get some straightening this morning.

I thought of another source for information.  I did a scrapbook both times we went to England. 

I remembered that we went down to Portsmouth with my friend Ronnie and her husband to see the Maritime Museum there. 

One of the great things that we saw there was the Mary Rose.  It was the flagship of  Henry VIII.  In the museum itself there was an extensive display of things that they found on the ship. The photo to the left is just a small sample of all of the stuff. 

The time period is right for the cottage, so I will be copying some of the things there. 

I did go through the photos and didn't find even one plaster covered chimney.

I dug out the back of the chimney on the ground floor of the cottage. 

It is a manila envelope paper with other pieces of paper stuck on top, then painted.  Interesting technique, but I would like some contrast of the mortar between the bricks. 

I think that this will lead to some experimentation.

I keep looking at the chimney and trying to decide what to do...

I thought of another option.  See the crack on the top right corner of the photo?  That whole section had to be glued back on when I first got the house.  I am now wondering if I could just do some brick work in a couple of areas like that and make it look like it has been plastered and is falling off of the brick. 

While I think, I clean....Two jobs being done at once.  Designing in my head and cleaning with my hands!

See you tomorrow.