Merry Christmas

Christmas blessings one and all from Downunder. 
May your day be all you wish.

A Different Advent Calendar

http://www.miniaturechurch.co.uk/adventcalendar.html

Welcome new followers!

I've been busy with real life the last week or two as I suppose everyone is at this time of year.  Not a lot of time to spend at the computer and sooooo many lovely blogs to keep up with, I've neglected my own.

Welcome to:-
Kim
http://kimsminiatures.blogspot.com/

Vicki
http://veedub1912.blogspot.com/

(can't find a name)
http://casitaminicm.blogspot.com/

Lisette
http://lisettesminiaturen.blogspot.com/

Taenia
http://taeniasminiatures.blogspot.com/

Norma
http://makeminemini.blogspot.com/

Cheryl
http://aminiatureplace.blogspot.com/

Lucia
(No blog showing)

Maite
http://miniaturista-minisypx.blogspot.com/

Marisa
(No blog showing)

Maria
http://diaryofaminiaturist.blogspot.com/

Marlies
http://marliesminies.blogspot.com/

Thankyou for following!

More anon, Christmas shopping with daughter this morning.

Begin at the beginning part 2 - or - The On-going Tale of a Miniature Addiction

Having realised I was in fact a miniaturist and part of a wide community rather than believing the love of all things tiny was some sort of personality disorder that needed to be hidden, I proudly came out of the closet with miniature crochet hook in hand in 1976, whilst living in Palmerston Nth. in New Zealand.  Proceeds from miniature crochet bought a scroll saw and a couple of books and I was on my way!  Nothing whatever could be bought at that time, certainly not furniture, not even basswood for the handywoman.   A cabinet maker was co-erced into putting some Heart Totara through his thicknesser and miniature furniture began to fill any moment spared from the demands of 2 babies, 1 husband and 1 dear 15 year old brother who was living with us and making me laugh amongst the chaos.

A move to Auckland the following year brought with it the opportunity to go to night classes in joinery to build a 3 storey Georgian style dollhouse to  house the growing collection of furniture I'd been slowly making.  Unfortunately that dollhouse had to be left behind when life brought me home to Australia but all the "doings" came along and waited patiently for a new dollhouse home.  Patiently.................

Real life took some twists and turns so, unable to build another dollhouse myself, a friend entered into an agreement to build one for me - a tall narrow house along the lines of a Paddington Terrace house but with a balcony at the top.  Great excitement about 2 years ago when it arrived.

Patience?  it only took 30 years to replace that first dollhouse and worth the wait I might add.

   

The equestrian chap holding the shotgun is visiting while he waits for his new home in Micah's stable.

Shabby but not too chic............

Oh, the agony of a whole long weekend with nothing to do but miniatures only to get something in my eye and end up with a dressing on it.  One eye just doesn't do the job when it comes to miniatures, specially not when it comes to scalpels!  Patience wore thin this morning and off came the eye patch for an experimental squizz at the world.  Not too painful, good enough for some play.  Grandson no.2 came over and we played with knives! 

We think the loose box needs to be 1" wider but apart from that we're happy with the mock up, we'll use mdf and ply for the stable proper.  The front fence will be uprights in the finished stable so the horse can't get his foot over a rail ;)

Speaking of miniature food packaging........

Grumpy made 4 of these for me.  They're turned on a lathe from an aluminium arrow shaft.  I punched the lid from a candle holder and glued it in place with araldite.

And more printie packages, modern Australian food.

Christmas and pondering.........

New members, welcome and thankyou for joining.
http://kimsminiatures.blogspot.com/
http://veedub1912.blogspot.com/
http://casitaminicm.blogspot.com/
http://lisettesminiaturen.blogspot.com/
 http://taeniasminiatures.blogspot.com/

Summer has arrived Downunder with record temperatures, humidity looked like thick smoke earlier in the week.  I loathe summer :(  not the best time for miniature needlework even with air-conditioning.  Work is slow on the pink and white shabby bedspread.

Christmas is roaring toward us like a big scary train..............4 grandchildren........ much pondering on gifts.  Luckily a couple like miniatures!  Some printies made up this week for grandson no.3's kitchen roombox is all I have to share.

More doodling.

Not sure which size block to use.........probably need to make more of the larger one to get an idea of overall look.  The small block would be good for an afghan but may be too much for a whole spread.  Either way there are a good few hours of work ahead.

A conservative estimate of the time involved for this more formal spread would be in the region of 120 hours.

This photo is part of a roombox I filled for a miniature crochet display.  The bed usually lives in my dollhouse and Emma Rose has her own roombox.

Doodling.....

A bedspread is needed for the single bed in the dollhouse..........last nights doodling around with colour and design.

Crochet at last........

Just finished, an Afghan for a friend.  I think I want to do one of these in pastels with shabby white instead of black for myself.

Truly miniature crochet hook

After discussion of miniature size crochet hooks a friend showed me her miniature crochet hook - you have to see it to believe!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/veedub/

Welcome new followers

Ok, I'm starting to feel more comfortable with this blog thing though it often takes several tries to get a post right!  Oh for a few new brain cells, the old ones are permanently on strike!!  Let's hope I get the urls to go live.

Welcome to Susan http://susanshouses.blogspot.com/  Mariella http://muffa-minis.blogspot.com/  and Linda http://linsminis.blogspot.com/  Thankyou for joining!

Crochet hooks with a matchstick

Not sure this photo give any better idea of the scale.  The 0.6mm hook on the left is equivalent to US size 14.

Miniature crochet hooks

I've been asked what size crochet hooks I use so here they are.  The one on the far left is 0.6mm, next is 0.5mm, then 0.4mm and the one on the right is 0.3mm.  I ground off the numbers when I ground down the hook.

The wee pink bear shown on the right of posts was made with the 0.3mm hook and Mettler 60 thread.  It is 15 mm tall from the crown of it's head to the tip of its toes and it is 5 way jointed.

Spring Downunder

After much needed rain and spring temperatures the world is looking pretty where I live.  Here are some photos of part of my garden.  Garden maintenance is done in winter and I hibernate indoors with air-conditioning in the hot humid summer!

Coat hanger jig

This jig is simple to make and sure isn't fancy as you'll see from the pics.

These are the supplies you'll need for the hangers, suitable wire of course, a block of scrap wood, different size dowels, a pin vise with drill bits or an electric drill, glue, knife to cut the dowels, snips for the wire and small smooth nosed pliers(sorry, forgot to put them in the photo.

Draw the shape you want your hanger to be on your block of wood allowing for the thickness of the wire.  Drill holes as you can see in the photo to insert the dowels, cut dowels to length and glue in the holes.  Leave to dry at least 24 hours for full strength or they might move when you put pressure on them.

Cut about 4" of wire and start bending from the hook end.

Continue bending till you are back where you started from.  Slip the wire off the jig and push the end of the wire behind the neck of the hook, slip back on and check your shape is ok, bend the end of the wire up a little and then slip the hanger back off to finish.

Fold the wire around the neck making sure you keep the shape.  Nip off the wire leaving a tiny stub, pinch that down tight with your pliers.

Snip off the hook and file it smooth.  You might need to tweak the shape a bit with your pliers.  These are baby size hangers, the hook looks a trifle large because the hanging rail in the white wardrobe is perhaps a bit thicker than it could have been but when clothes are hanging on the hangers they look ok.

Update of Emma Rose's Shabby wardrobe

I couldn't find my old coathanger jig so had to find time to make a new one before hanging Emma Rose's clothes in her wardrobe.  Gold wire was all I could find in my stash, not the best choice for a shabby baby, they can be replaced later.  The little matinee jackets were knitted by a dear friend but I made the rest.

Busy week with family

There hasn't been any time to post this week with family visiting from distant parts.  Much love and laughter had by all.  Real life is sometimes more important than miniatures ;)

I thought I'd show you the pith helmet my dollhouse gentleman wore when he shot his tiger in India.  It's so like the real thing and was made by Kathy at http://www.kathybee.net/

The tigerskin came from Hanna

http://hannajaleijona.blogspot.com/

Emma Rose's Christening

Testing, testing, one, two, three.  Just kidding, this will (hopefully) contain my first live link!!

Don't all faint, this post actually shows some of my crochet.

Emma Rose looked so sweet dressed in her christening outfit I thought she had to have a christening photo even though I had to play the part of the minister!  Emma Rose was made by Lisa  http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovinclaydolls/  I love this little treasure, she looks just like my own daughter did when she was very new.

Susan.

Woohoo!!

I don't believe it, I've figured out how to get live links into posts!!!  There's hope for the dementia after all.  Me a happy camper :)))

Susan.

Smack my hand, I'm a bad blogger....

Wow, 6 new followers I forgot to welcome!  Hi to Casey-Casey's Minis, Synnove-Synnoves Et Dukkehjem, Sonia-Mini Tink, Debie-Piskies and Poppets, Meli-Casitas de Meli, Debbie-Tiny Treasures.  Thanks for joining my blog!  I've enjoyed catching up with your blogs too.

If anyone can help me find out how to put links into posts I'd really appreciate that.

Shabby Cannisters

Playing hookey from my crochet hook yet again!

Made from buttons, dowel and glass headed pins.

First Shabby Quilt

Before mentioning the quilt I want to apologise to Deni for not figuring out how to do the award thingie, technology does my head in.  It took me three days to work out how to get photos into the text instead of at the top!  The saying goes - "What's the best thing about having CFS?"  answer:- "You can hide your own easter eggs."  That about covers it ;)

It's 6 or 7 years since I last did any quilting so it was very much experiment, un-do and experiment again for my first Shabby miniature quilt.  With each mistake another memory file was dredged back out of the storage vault but not in time to make this little quilt as it should be, it'll be fine folded in a cupboard.

The girls look a trifle stunned about the photo shoot, perhaps they'd rather be hibernating!

Knobs!

My first carved knobs.  Now for the paint.

This 'n that but not crochet!

First of all, hi to the followers thanks for signing up - and I'm still a rank beginner. Darn, I'd better try to say something!

Ok, so I'm mini crochet mad but real life and other miniatures have taken my time this week, even a visit to a real life miniature loving friend :) That doesn't happen as often as I'd like so it's all the more fun when we do get together.

Lidi prodded me along to take the plunge in Shabby Chic-ing my first piece of furniture. Yay! thanks Lidi, it was so much fun, no such thing as mistakes. Criticism welcome, I have a lot to learn.
Lidi's blog is at
http://mini-haven.blogspot.com/

Dogs and shabby chic

Discovering miniature blogland has been loads of fun over the past few months thanks to so many gifted and sharing miniaturists. Whenever I had time I'd be checking on favourite blogs. I found myself enjoying the Shabby Chic style and realised that, without knowing there was a name for it, I'd been living the Shabby Chic style for most of my life and sharing it with my furkids, nothing nicer than a bed full of dog fuzz ;)

Begin at the beginning

Dear me, I find I have a follower! Not much to follow so far I fear, I'm rendered speechless by this blank page. Utterly speechless! Oh 'eck, as my greatgranny used to say, where to begin......

Start at the beginning could work, well, here goes. The love of all things tiny began at birth but it wasn't till I was expecting my first baby that I discovered via a magazine article that I was not alone in this addiction. You can't imagine my frustration being unable to begin the 1/12th scale journey at the time, living in New Guinea a 4 1/2 hour copra boat trip down the coast from Rabaul, the only contact with the outside world a radio telephone and month old magazines and newspapers. Two children and a couple of years down the track life led me to some miniaturists in New Zealand who opened my eyes to wonders previously unimagined.

My only real miniature skill is crochet but dabbling in other areas brings joy also. A love of teddy bears has of course been translated into miniature crocheted bears. Meet Butterscotch who is sharing the limelight with MicroDot and Petal, two of his older sisters.

As scary as bungee jumping!

Well, heaven knows how I made it to this point in blog land but hopefully I'll learn more as I go along.