A Little Bit of This and That

Later this month we will have our annual miniature fair in Johannesburg where our club will have a table and exhibit some of our monthly club projects, I am busy working on our present project and also finishing up one or two older projects in time for the fair.

Our present project is a shaving stand, this is the prototype that our chair lady Lisa Martens made from Imbuia.

Here are two of my fellow club members Di and Aubrey very hard at work on their shaving stands at last month's workshop.

My daughter hi-jacked my kit and I decided to make the shaving stand in Cherry as the color will fit in better the rest of my miniature bedroom, Lisa also send me a photo of the original stand that she used for inspiration and I changed mine a bit here and there, you can see it on the left of the photo. On the right is a blanket chest that just need some nice hinges, we made this last year at one of our workshops.

My shaving stand with the drawer and central dividers added, we will continue working on them at our next workshop on 10 August.

I am almost done with the second side panel of my casket, just need to add the back stitching, my new phone takes really good photos of my petit point, you can even see the French Knots that I used for the hair and cuffs. The new photos show the detail much better, so here are the other panels too.

The first side panel and....

 the back panel, next I will stitch the two doors, still need to do the charting for them though.

I went to the tool shop that I mentioned in my previous post and bought some supplies for silver soldering, big bummer though, when I tried the torch, the knob for opening the gas flow was stuck fast. I phoned them about it and they just delivered a replacement at my door while I am typing this, although they are not far from me, they have a driver and you can order from them at any time and they will deliver straight to your door, now in a country where even local post can take a few days, this is a real bonus :-)

And last but not least, I couldn't resist showing our cat Yoda's favorite drinking spot, the running tap in my bathroom, of course this involves looking at me with big eyes and saying, "please, please open the tap, I am a thirsty kitty". Oh well, he melts my heart every time ;-)

Have a great mini weekend, everyone!
Elga

I am still here.......

Just busy with both real life issues and working very hard on a few commissions that needs to be finished in eight weeks time.

I finally finished the back-sticthing on the back panel of the casket.

And here is the back panel before I did any of the back stitching just to show you how the detail pops after adding the back-stitching  One of the biggest challenges of working on 90 count silk gauze is the small amount of colors available to choose from, there isn't too many threads out there that are thin enough to use on the small counts. Although the back-stitching is a lot of extra work I think the results are worth the effort.

I am more than halfway with next side panel, I took the photo with an eraser just to give you a sense of how small the panels really are :-)

And this Shaker candle stand was our project for February and March at our monthly meetings of the South African Academy of Miniaturists in Johannesburg. The table is made from Jacaranda wood, the glasses was part of a Christmas swap a few years ago, the readable book is from Barbara Brear, her books are simply amazing, and lastly the ivory elephant candle holder is an antique loose bead that I bought a few years ago at a miniature show.

Have a fantastic week everyone
Elga

Something quick and easy for a change

Yesterday we had the first workshop for this year at our Johannesburg club. We made a letter holder in cherry wood. It was fun to finish something for a change in a few hours ;-)

Here is my letter holder.

And here are all the pieces, from top to bottom: the base, front, back, center divider and the sides to the left and right. We could choose the shaping of the back, divider and sides for ourselves, I didn't feel like making curves and decided to use angles. On the back and divider I just cut off the corners at a 45 degree angle. For the sides I first cut off what I didn't want at an angle (on the left in the photo) and then finished the shaping with my craft knife (on the right in the photo). After the glue was dry I shaped the sides with a file to continue the angle of the back and divider as you can see in the first photo.

Showing the letter holder on the desk in the study.

Have a great week everyone
Elga