Step By Step...

This is the desk that I got from Joan a couple of weeks ago.  It was missing one leg.

I decided that today was the day to replace it.

I went and got some quarter inch walnut.  It will turn out close to the same color when finished.

I also found a little furniture wheel in my stash.

Then I used my trusty Exacto to taper the bottom and put a notch around the top, to match the other legs.

As soon as I got it glued in place... We all  know what happened next.

 The leg I fixed is the one by her left elbow. As soon as I finished gluing the leg in place, she started gathering up the drawers to take away.

I told her not to, if she wants everything to match when I am finished. I will put a new finish on it tomorrow, after the glue dries.


She reluctantly returned the drawers and made me sign a contract saying that the finished desk was hers to keep...

Maybe she will get it and maybe she won't.  I have the only copy of said contract!  It could disappear or go up in smoke at any moment.

I am not sure where it will go, but I am liking the desk a lot.  Maybe I will make a gentlemen's study... Let's see her claim that!

Back to work.

See you tomorrow.

Ready for My Close Up...

No... Don't look at the hand.  Look at the dressing table and stool.

I designed and made this in 1985.  It was one of my very early pieces... Nobody told me I couldn't do it, so I did it... It was for me, so no worries if I ruined it.

Its not too bad, considering I made it up as I went along. 

It has never really had a home.

I wasn't to savvy about wood and didn't notice that the sides of the bench weren't going to match the rest of it until it was pretty much a done deal.

Oh well.  I liked it anyway.

There's that half a bench again.

What does this have to do with anything?  This is what is going in the bay in the box.  I had to get measurements to do the draperies.

This bed is also an orphan.  That is, it was never meant to be one of the numbered series of beds.  I made it just for ME in 2006! 

Tessie can borrow it, but it is still MINE!

I went so far as to make it like a real bed. The other beds that I made for sale were done on solid bottoms like Judee Williamson teaches in her classes. 

I noticed that both of these pieces need a bit of repair work.  Scratches.  Dings.  A few ruffles out of place.

 I can fix those.

Meanwhile, I have done a sketch of what I want to do in the bay.  It's a bit hard to see in the photo, but trust me... I know what I'm doing...

And Tessie approves!!!

By the way... The green marble floor is real.  It's a floor tile.  I simply made the box to fit it.  Much easier than cutting it!

I am going back to work now.

See you tomorrow.

Cleaning Up and Throwing Out...

I have been trying to do the first of the year clean out... It is the same every year.  I try to sort and toss.

Tessie, on the other hand tries to keep and collect. 

I try to keep the two separated by keeping her away from the workroom when I am doing it...

Today was not one of the more successful.

I left the big notebook out on the table... It is the one that I have put sketches in.  Over the years, from 1982 onwards.


The bed sketch that she is gazing so fondly at is a one of a kind Chippendale that I carved back in 82.  The design in the center of the arch is the headboard that goes to the end where Tessie is standing.

I took it to California for a show and sold it almost before I unpacked it.  I was always sorry that I didn't keep that one.

Don't tell Tessie.  She is nagging at me to make one like that for her...(for the future mansion?)

The original was carved from walnut.  She is having fits, since I told her that I already did it and sold it.  Not a happy camper!

I hate to say it, but I am really tempted to do another one like that. It was one of my favorites.

I tried to take the notebook away from her, but she won the tug of war...

Bench for the front hall? 

I think that I still have one like that.  I made several... I even taught a class on how to do it at one point...

Then she found my favorite Spanish piece...

A four poster bed with barley twist posts and a carved and pierced headboard.  The original of this one was done with an emerald green silk coverlet.

Unfortunately, this one got dropped and broken. 

Now she wants another one made... At least that one is not as complicated as the Chippendale ones.

This one is another Chippendale.  I never made it.  I just did the scale sketches.

I got it straight out of Chippendale's book on furniture making. 

Tessie followed me in here...

I am going to quietly get up from the keyboard and then race into the workroom, slam the door, grab the notebook and stuff it back into the bookcase... Way up on a HIGH shelf...

 Now  I will innocently look around and ask her where she put it.  That should hold her for a while. 

I put a couple of other books in front of it.  Let the search begin!

Back to sorting.

See you tomorrow.

Carve Away Anything That Doesn't Look Like a Table....

That's what one art teacher told me to do in sculpting... Makes perfect sense, when you think about it.  It's easier said than done though.

Here's a not very good pattern for what I am doing. 

This is all I have right now.  I will draw a better one later.

The top is the simplest part.  Just draw a line on the graph paper of how long you want one side of the table to be.  Do the same at a right angle.  Then connect the two.  Instant table top...Almost.

This is what I am using as a guideline for the leg.  I will draw a more accurate pattern after I finish the table.  It will look mostly like the left half of the pattern. 

My carving changes as I work.  If I give you a pattern now, it might not even resemble the finished table.  That's just how it goes.

I cut out the two leg pieces on the jigsaw.  You have to make an allowance for the thickness of the wood.

This is 1/8" thick walnut, so I have to make one side narrower by that 1/8". 

If you have never carved anything, there are a couple of tricks to doing it.

First, you should always try to carve with the grain of the wood if you can.  See the first carving photo?  Notice that all of the curls from the carving curl in towards the center of the curve.  If you do it this way, there is less chance of splitting the wood and you get a smoother cut.

Speaking of smoother cuts... I always have an emery board at hand when carving.  It helps to smooth the edges and then go in and cut again.  If you just keep whacking off chunks of wood, you may run the risk of taking off too much at one time.  As you can see from the above photo, I make a stop cut straight into the wood along the line that I am about to carve.  That way there is less risk of taking off wood that you didn't mean to.

I still have a long way to go on the leg.  Where I am now is really just a rough cut of when I want the lines to go.

This is going to change the kitchen quite a bit, but I couldn't resist.  It has been a few years since I did any carving at all.  It is one of the things that I enjoy most about miniatures. 

If you try this, don't be afraid of using walnut or cherry.  I prefer those.  They are harder to carve, but less likely to split than bass.

Bass is OK for beginning and practice, but don't be surprised if your knife bites off a bit more than you wanted it to.


Wednesday Witches will interfere with this today, but I am going to try to get it done fairly fast.

I am anxious to see what it is going to look like in the room...If it doesn't look right, I may have to find another place to use a triangular table or.... carve three more legs... I will keep telling myself that it's going to look good.

See you tomorrow.

Cut the Wood, Not the Widget...

Did you ever try to carve barley twist legs with a cat's help?  It doesn't work too well.

This morning I started the table for the dressing room.

I am taking a few liberties with this box.  Alex Cooke died around 1615.  That puts him working as an actor right around 1600.

Barley twist legs were popular a little later, but who's to say that there weren't a few around before they became really popular?

The first photo is of all of the pieces.  If you want to try making one, enlarge the photo.  This particular one, I am making 2" by 4". The legs are two and a half inches long, cut from 1/4" walnut stock. 

The top and side skirts are from 1/16" walnut stock.  They are 1/2" deep and  1" and 3".  I made them an inch smaller than the top, so that there would be a nice overhang.

Now for the fun part.  I started a half inch from the top of the leg and marked it every quarter inch from there to the bottom on all four sides.  Then I drew a diagonal in each quarter inch square on all four sides.

Next, I took my Exacto knife with a new #11 blade and made a V all down the diagonals.  At this point they don't have to be perfect.  The corners will be rounded, so just as long as they are reasonably matched they will be fine.  The last 1/4" at the bottom will be the ball foot, with a small flat area between the barley twist and the foot.

Now simply carve away anything that doesn't look like a barley twist leg.... Just watch out for the Widget...

Every time I would hold the leg up to see where I was going with it.  Widget decided that it was a great place to scratch his nose and chin...

A word of advice....Lock the cat out of the room before you start.

Mine is fascinated with whatever project I am working on.  I think that he was a miniaturist in a former life....

Anyway, I will keep you posted on the progress, or lack thereof.  It all depends on how long it takes for Widget to lose interest...

See you tomorrow.

Some Kind of Progress....

Yesterday afternoon I went back to carving the fireplace surround for the living room.  I still have a ways to go, but I am making progress...

I have all of the design roughed out. I still have to do more carving and then smoothing with files and emery boards.

I am liking it so far.  When it is finished, I will put a dark walnut stain over the whole thing.

I forgot that I had done foundation stone on one end of the cottage with DAS...I was out.  I made a trip to Michael's this morning, only to find that they no longer have it.

They are now carrying Polyform Air Drying clay...That's the company that puts out Sculpey products.  It seems that Polyform is making all kind of changes in their product line.  It looks like they may be changing their lovely flesh colored Super Sculpey to gray...ICK!
I still have quite a bit left, but I am going to be looking to stock up if I find it anywhere.  That's what I use for my people.

When I returned, I found that Zar had been putting together a plan for the stairwell.  That is just as dark as the res of the second floor.

He scrounged around in my stash and found a single French door.  It looks like we will be building a skylight above the stairs...Sometimes he is a handy guy to have around.

Tessie, not so much.  I caught her looking down to the mock up and talking to herself.  "I guess  it will have to do.  The stairs themselves were much more fun.  I remember sliding down them in Zar's bath tub.  I even have photos to prove it.  Go here to look. http://caseymini.blogspot.com/2009/03/lost-and-found.html  Sliding down a short, bumpy french door is going to be sooooo boring.  Drat it!"

Oh well.  She will just have to find other amusements...Like trying to get into the workroom.

I have to go replace 23 photos that disappeared from the Dec.28  to the Jan. 2 entries now.  I got scared and backed up the rest of 2012 last night.  I want to get the rest of it done before something else happens.

Back to work.  See you tomorrow.

Back At It!

This morning I dragged Tessie's cottage back to the living room where it belongs. She went kicking, screaming and under vigorous protest! Unfortunately for her, I'm bigger than she is.

I needed the table to work on the door of the Clockwork cottage. I set up my magnifying lamp and got out my Exacto and rifler files and went to work. I could hear mumbling and grumbling coming from the other room. I ignored it.

I can definitely tell the difference between the work that I did on the wood carving before new glasses and after. Here's the before. I was carving way to deep on the preliminary cuts. Probably because I couldn't see how deep or sharp I was going into the wood. I am hoping that I will be able to fix this without starting over. It would be a shame to lose all of that work.

Here's another area that I did after glasses. The cuts are much more precise and I have a lot more control over what I am doing. These pieces still have a long way to go so I won't bore you with the details. It will take me at least a couple of days to get where I want to go with this.

By the way, this will be the inside of the door. I am going to do a rather plain plank door on the other side. I am too lazy to do both sides.

I found a piece of terracotta tile flooring that I did a couple of years ago that might work for the kitchen. I laid it in there this morning. It is smaller by about an inch, but I think that I can fudge a bit and do some floor based shelves or counters to cover the difference.

I am also still trying to think of a way to disguise the dumbwaiter. I would still like to have it. I just don't want it to show as a dumbwaiter in the kitchen.

I went into the bedroom to get some emery boards. As I came back I heard thump, thump, thump, mumble, mumble. I looked into the kitchen. There was Tessie. She managed to get back into the cottage and had the cappuccino machine with her.

She was stomping around the kitchen with a protest sign. I first asked her how she got in. She said that caterpillar fur, rusty nails and ant whiskers make a very powerful potion when mixed with a couple of other secret ingredients. I didn't ask what the secret ingredients were. I don't think that I want to know.....

I asked what the sign was for. She replied"It's for the unfairness of Zar getting a bigger and better house than I have!" I WANT THE MAGNOLIA! And I still think it's an ugly name! It will be called Spiderwort Manor when I move in." I had to laugh. She has a lot of nerve. She is now under the impression that I should immediately stop work on the Clockwork cottage and start the Magnolia!

I told her "Don't hold your breath, Tessie!" She instantly drew in a deep breath and held it. That lasted about thirty seconds. Then she sat down on the kitchen floor and started drinking her cappuccino. Heaven help me. I now have a hyperactive, caffeine fueled witch on my hands. Gotta go.

See you tomorrow.

A Bit of This and That.....

I am still struggling with my new glasses. I think I said this before. They just aren't right somehow.

I have been working on the living room fireplace this morning. I used the new glasses. I can only see 12" from my face before it starts getting blurry. Maybe my favorite Optometrist can tell me if this is normal. Rosanna, are you out there? It seems like I have to keep refocusing my eyes every few minutes to really see. I definitely can't drive my car with them. I can see the steering wheel but the speedometer and other instruments on the dash are very blurry. Anyway, refocusing again, I am wearing the old glasses now. I have never had any difficulty getting used to new glasses before. I think that is why this is so frustrating.

I got about a third of the second side of the fireplace carved. I finally switched back to my old glasses so that I could see what I was doing. I went back and re did some of the carving that I did while I had the other glasses on.

My husband asks why I keep trying. I want to be able to tell Dr. Amy how these are not working and I can't if I don't try.

I am quiting for the day. On top of everything else, my eyes just feel tired.

Tessie is no help at all. Now she is sitting on the edge of a shelf in the family room. Yes. She still has the two dogs. Hey! At least as long as she has them for company she is staying out of my hair.

I am going now to finish the real world housework. I don't like that even more than I don't like the new glasses.....No. Wait. I like the new glasses. I just don't like the new lenses. Bah Humbug! Grumble, grumble, grumble!

See you tomorrow.

There Will Be a Slight Pause.......

I started carving this morning only to discover that I no longer had any sharp Exacto blades. This is a bad thing. I knew I was running short, but not this short. None. Nada. No where. No how. Not a new blade anywhere.

I went on line to Micro Mark.http://www.micromark.com/ This is my favorite source of any kind of mini tools. They have a box of 100 #11 blades for 15.95. That sounds like a lot until you get on line at other sources and they sell 15 blades for 5.99! Even with the postage of 8.95, if you order two boxes at once, it comes out much cheaper. For me it is worth it. The cost total was 40.65.That comes out to about twenty cents a blade, compared to the forty cents a blade that it would cost here in town, sans postage. I am not saying that everyone should run to the computer and order 200 blades, but it is Cheaper for me because I go through a lot of blades. There is a method of sharpening the blades with very fine wet/dry sandpaper and some other kind of sandpaper, but I can't, for the life of me, remember what the other one was.

Anyway, I ordered them. They should get here about the same time as my new glasses. I will be able to see what I am cutting with the new blades. YAY!!!

I painted the wall behind the bedroom fireplace this morning to see how it would look. I used Midnight Blue Ceramcoat. This is by no means the finished wall. I just wanted to see the effect. After I looked at the house, I was afraid that the surround wasn't going to fit the area. I didn't remember that it was so close to the stairwell. Right now I am trying to think of a way to eliminate the railings or changing them to a see through design so that the fireplace will be seen. If I put in the existing railings, they will block about half of the fireplace. Poor design if you ask me. Nobody did though, so I will just have to work around the problem. Bah Humbug!

Yesterday, after I left you, I made the decision. Minikat was right. I opted for the beads instead of the workroom. I have another handle done. This time it's on my chain nosed pliers. I decided to show you some of the other things that you can do if you learn to do peyote stitch. You have already seen the needle nosed pliers. From left to right in the photo, the first one is a bracelet based on an African design, a watch band that I made up as I went along, another bracelet with antique watch fob fasteners and a heavy plastic bead container with a screw on top. That one is done with the smaller #14 beads. Now you see why I don't get more minis done. I am easily distracted......

It does produce ideas for miniatures. Here's a close up of a couple of beaded bags that I did a few years ago.

I guess that I have stalled long enough. I am going into the den of desperation this afternoon to clean. Please keep your fingers, toes, eyes and elbows crossed for me. I will need it.

See you tomorrow.

Woodcarving Made Easy......

OK. So it's not totally easy. It's another one of those "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" things. The answer is "Practice!". Since I have had an Exacto knife in hand since I was ten(with supervision) I should be able to do a decent job by now. There are definitely others that do it better, but I am passable. By the way, I no longer require supervision. Maybe sometimes I should have it, but not necessarily because I have an Exacto in my hand. I am of no danger to anyone else, only to myself. We won't talk about the time that I dropped the Exacto and it cut a small gash into my stomach. Oops! Apply butterfly bandage and go on with the carving........ I have done worse than that with a sewing machine needle. I once sewed a hole into my left index finger! Please don't tell anybody that I am accident prone. I will deny it as I apply the bandage to the appropriate area of my body.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. It is hard to teach woodcarving in a blog. I will show you a few photos to give you a vague idea about how I do it.

In a previous post I showed you how I transfer the pattern to the wood. Here you see that I am doing the "stop cuts". That is simply running the Exacto knife along all of the lines to make a vertical cut about 1/16" to begin. It can be cut deeper as needed while carving, a little bit at a time. You will notice that I didn't follow the pencil lines religiously. I made adjustments to the design as I went. Some leaves needed to be wider and some had to have a bit more or a bit less curve.

After I have this part done, I go back and start making side cuts. This is to carve away the area that I want recessed for background and leaves that I want to set back in the design further than the most prominent ones. Again, I do this a little at a time. You can carve the wood off, but it is very difficult to put back.......I guess you could do it with chips and glue, but it wouldn't be much fun. How do you do a good carving? Very carefully.

This part is almost like trying to slide the blade under a tiny slice of the wood. The point rests against one of the stop cuts and the rest of the knife just goes along for the ride. The trick is to try to keep it going for the length of the line that you are carving. You don't want to do a bunch of short cuts. That makes for a choppy looking carving.

The last photo shows the whole side piece carved and partially sanded. The left side of the photo is further along than the right.

I almost have half of the living room fireplace surround finished. Can you tell that I am stalling for time? This piece(3 pieces) is going to take a bit longer than the one that I just finished.

I started a little of the door carving. I quickly stopped. I am out of sharp blades. No way am I going to tackle walnut with a dull blade. I just may have to bead another tool handle until I get a new supply. The alternative is cleaning the workroom...........Guess which task will win?

See you tomorrow.

She's Baaaccckkk........

I was taking photos of the stained fireplace surround this morning when Tessie arrived on the scene. She announced that the photo that I had of the surround was "tres boring".....

Where she picked up that phrase, I don't know. She has been watching old movies on DVDs for the past few days. I think that was the result of watching "Breakfast at Tiffany's". At last count, she has seen that one, I think, 7 times in the past week. I told you she was "going Hollywood" on me. Heaven forbid that she get a look at "Gone With the Wind"! She will probably burn the house down and make a dress out of my living room draperies!

Anyway, she volunteered to pose with the work. I have to admit that the one of the fireplace surround was a bit more lively than taking the photo on a paper plate.I stained that this morning.

I finished the beaded handles on the pliers last night. Yup. She had to pose with those. She seems to feel that more is better when it comes to beads. I am very happy with the way that they turned out. Now, if I can just keep them out of Tessie's reach. She can just barely lift them, but she says that they would work well to "Pinch things that misbehave....". She didn't mention any specific things. I am very nervous. Am I considered a "thing"?

She insisted that I get back to carving. I am not so sure that she doesn't have her eye on the Clockwork Cottage. She is a bit jealous of the two fireplaces in the new house.

I did succeed in doing all of the stop cuts on one side and started carving a bit. Then she insisted on posing with the piece so that you could see proof of work.

In case you don't know, stop cuts are simply vertical cuts along all of the pencil lines so that when I start shaping the leaves the knife hopefully won't cut something off that is on the other side of that cut.

This is it, her proof of work. Personally, I think that she just want her photo taken again. At the end of the photo session she announced that she wants to be "America's Next Top Model".I have a feeling that she is back for good and that's bad! I'm not sure where Regie is hiding. He probably saw her with the pliers.......

Back to the carving, doing real laundry and real housework. I wonder if she will want to help with the last two.....?

See you tomorrow.

I Can See Again.......

Well, not yet. I went for an eye appointment this morning. I had not done it for six or seven years......No. I am not a good patient. Not even if it's only for new glasses. I tend to cringe when anyone mentions a doctor's appointment. This one was amazing. They have all kinds of newfangled machines that do wonderful things. There was a new machine that eliminates the dilation thing. That was a few points in the doctor's favor even before we started. Then I found out that it checks for high blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol! Hey! It seems to me that that should count as a total check up! I passed on all three counts. Yay!!! Anyway, in about ten days I will be able to see better than I do now. Mind you, the doctor said that there wasn't a lot of change, but I was greatly relieved. I don't know about you, but when I have to do that kind of thing, I always go in thinking the worst. I figured that, by now, I had glaucoma, cataracts, macular degeneration and was going blind just on general principles. Nope. In ten days, I will be able to see everything that I am missing now......Is that good or bad?

I did do some work on the second floor fireplace yesterday and as soon as I finish here I am going back to it. It has been a couple of years since I did any carving. I had forgotten how much fun it is. It would be hard to teach you to do it on line, so I guess you will just have to watch the progress as I carve.

If you would like to get into it, this is my favorite book on woodcarving. I can't say that I have ever made anything from it, but I love some of the patterns. It was written about 1911 and has pieces that were relevant to the period. Just from the cover, you can see that it has influenced me a bit.I love acanthus leaves.

This is one of many Dover books in my collection. If you are at all interested in art, architecture, woodworking, and other crafts these are the books for you. They reproduce all kinds of old books for new readers. http://store.doverdirect.com/index.html It is fun just to go to their site and browse. They even have a few mini books. I have one of their miniature rug pattern books that I have used over and over for at least 25 years.

I am going back to work on the fireplace surround. You can go shopping at Dover if you need something to do for the rest of the day. It will take you that long to get through the site.

See you tomorrow.

Channeling Grinling Gibbons.......

At least I am trying to channel him. In case you aren't familiar with his work, he was master carver to King Charles II and George I of England . He is my hero when it comes to woodcarving. His carvings are life sized, but every detail is perfect. I want to be him when I grow up.

Now, about my woodcarving. After looking at that piece, I quit. No. Not really, but sometimes I feel like it.

I started the small fireplace this morning. I traced all three pieces that I am planning to do on wood with the old pencil for carbon paper trick. I'm pretty sure that everyone learned how to do this back in grade school, but just in case you didn't here it is. I simply cut out the piece that I wanted to transfer to the wood and colored the back of it heavily with pencil. I then taped it to the board and traced it to transfer all of the lines. After that I went over all of the lines on the wood once more so that I could see them clearly. It's messy, but someone has to do it.

I then cut them out on the jig saw. Then I sanded the edges. I did the two fireplace surrounds in bass wood and the front door in walnut. I am still thinking of painting the fireplaces to look like stone or marble. I didn't want to waste pretty walnut if I was just going to paint over it.

I didn't have any wood wide enough to do the downstairs fireplace in one piece, so I cut a keystone for the top of the arch. Under that, the two pieces will be butt jointed and I wanted to make it more stable. That's why a lot of real fireplaces have that very same feature. It's not just for cute.

The last photo shows how far I have gotten with an hour of carving......No one ever said that this was a fast process. The carving that you see is just blocked out. It's nowhere near done. The lighter areas are mostly background spots that I have carved down so that the leaves will stand out.

I think that it will help that I have an eye check up tomorrow and should have glasses that I can actually see through in the near future.....It kind of slows one down when they can't see what they are doing. Oops! There goes another finger.....

The tools that you see are what I use. The Exacto is my weapon of choice, followed by an emery board cut into quarters. I angle one end of that to get into small corners. The files get used a bit, but not as much as the other two.

As I said before, no one said this was going to be fast. I guess that I should get back to work if I want to finish carving sometime in this century.

See you tomorrow.