Back in Action!

Sometimes life just goes crazy and you feel like you're chasing your tail - that's what the last three weeks have been like!

BUT, I do have a couple of miniature matters to share now that things have settled down a bit:

Firstly, I want to show you these little silk cushions.  You might remember that I posted a photo of this Westacre sofa recently and mentioned that it would originally have had a little silk cushion at each end. Well, my lovely friend, Edel, very kindly volunteered to make these for me.

I sent her a little swatch of "100% silk fabric satin backed crepe" in a lovely, aged pink colour called "Vintage Rose" (bought on eBay for 99p with free P&P!) and she transformed it into these perfect little cushions with the tiniest, neatest stitches!

 

And, as there was a little bit of fabric left over, Edel made a gorgeous little 'bonus' quilt for my Elgin cradle.  It's amazing how different the colour looks between the cushion photo and these - in reality I think it's somewhere in between the two.

When I gave Edel the measurements, I originally envisaged the quilt tucking into the sides of the cradle, but now I'm thinking it looks better laid on top like this because you can see the lovely detailing better.

Again, the stitches are fabulously tiny and neat!  Thank you, Edel, you are so clever and I will treasure these! xx

Next up - plates!



I've had a go at making some 'china' plates. The results are a bit varied but, overall, I'm pleased. I think the four on the right are the better ones.

I copied an idea that I saw somewhere recently (Facebook maybe?) and it was very easy to do.  I bought paper plates from eBay - 25 of them for £1.49 plus 95p postage (then I remembered that a friend actually gave me some a while back!!!)  I then found photographs of plates I liked on Google Images and printed them out.

The tricky bit is to get the printed plate exactly the right size, preferably not overlapping the edge of the plate and no smaller than the plate - so pretty precise - and to cut them out neatly.  I did a lot of grey-scale printing until I got it right. Or nearly right - the four plates on the left in the photo had printouts which were a smidge too big and their edges are a bit rough as a result.

The next step is to put tacky glue onto the plates and stick on the printed plates, smoothing them down carefully - no wrinkles allowed!

Once dry, you just coat them with several layers of varnish (back and front). I used clear nail varnish as it is quite thick and after a few coats, it gave the plates a bit of bulk.

The final step, if you choose, is to put lining around the outside edge with a gold pen. I found that this neatened them up a bit.

Here are some photos of them in situ in Agar Hall:

Until next time,

Zoe

Sassy Teenage Grecon - Follow Up

You might recall my recent post about this sassy teenage Grecon:

 

When she arrived, I wasn't sure if her pale-blue fishnet tights were original or not but decided that, on balance, they probably were.

Well, now I know for definite because I was leafing through one of my favourite books this morning, 'Dollhouse and Miniature Dolls 1840-1990' by Marcie & Bob Tubbs, when I spotted a this photo:



Lo and behold, there was a similarly-dressed teenager, wearing the same pale-blue fishnets! I love it when pieces of the jigsaw fall into place like this.

   

My teenager definitely looks more sassy than the one in the book and I think that's down to the length of her dress which is, let's be honest, quite immodest!

I notice that the Tubbs book teenager has a longer dress and that her legs are nicely bound under her tights. Whereas, Little Miss Sass' legs are only bound half-way up under her tights - so I'm wondering if her dress was originally a little longer.

Perhaps her fashion-conscious young 'Human Bean' decided that she should lead the fashion for ever-shorter dresses as the 60s progressed and took the scissors to her.

On the other hand, the seams of her dress are properly finished and don't show signs of being re-stitched, so maybe it was down to a daring streak in the out-worker who originally dressed her - who knows?

The other thing I picked up from the photograph in the Tubbs book was that the Grecons in the photo are described as a "set" dating from the late 1950s, early 1960s and, apart from being pleased that my dating of her was in line with this, I realised that I had this contemporary young man waiting in the wings to keep her company.

Given that all my other Grecon teenagers look rather prissy when compared to Little Miss Sass, I'm very pleased that she'll have this young man to knock about with.  He has slightly different feet (longer and flatter) and might be a touch earlier, but they seem reasonably well-suited and we'll just have to see how it works out for them...

Until next time,
Zoe

[You can see my original post about my Sassy Teenage Grecon here.]