Wednesday Project and Petit Point Update

I haven't had much time for working on my Wednesday project for quite a while and are way behind my three friends, but this weekend I finally had some time to work on the tombstone doors for the upper case. One of my friends made a cutter from an old drill bit for the tombstone edges of the door panel, I am rather pleased with how it turned out. The cutter makes the top edges rounded, so I had to make the top corners square by hand, the door on the right still needs to done, hopefully you can see the difference. All the moldings on the door frame pieces were cut with  first a straight cutter and then a heart shaped cutter on the drill press. The trickiest part is making the slot in the door frame pieces where the panel fits in and mitering the small molding on the inside. The top rail is sticking out a bit, I think I will cut it flush once the door has been glued together, at the moment it is still all loose.

Showing the back of the door on the left, if you open the photo in a new tab you should be able to see it all a bit bigger.

The door lying in the case frame. You can read older posts about this project here.

Most days I make sure to take some time for doing a bit of petit point, I find it very relaxing, the deer is almost finished.

Have a great week.

Elga

Lots of Updates

Real life has been quite hectic these last few weeks, but I finally have a few things to show you.

First of all I bought this lovely antique chest of drawers and shelves for my workroom, I am really enjoying my new room and working in there. The shelves are typical of antique country furniture from the Cape Province in South Africa and made from indigenous Yellowwood.

This is the table that I taught at our Johannesburg club two weeks ago. It is a Sheraton style tilt-top table.

The original table that I copied is in the Metropolitan museum in New York, the table is made from Mopane wood and to give you an idea of size the top is 47mm by 33mm (1 7/8" by 1 5/16") big.

This table was the first piece of furniture that I made at our club when I joined in January of last year and the first time ever that I made cabriole legs. I never had time in class to do the molding for the table edge and I wasn't too sure how I wanted it to look either, so this week I took out my new cutters that I bought in NY and played a bit, I am quite pleased with the final result.

And then, I am still busy making Chippendale chairs, when I came back from Castine I found a big order from England for a set of six chairs that will grace a dining room in my inbox. With another six chairs still outstanding as well, I had to re-think about how I made the first few, as there was quite a few steps that caused me troubles first time round. The first thing that I did was to build two jigs for hollowing out the back splats, last time round I did it with a homemade attachment to my Dremel, although the results were fine, I just didn't enjoy the process at all.. My cutter isn't deep enough to do it in one cut, here you can see the front face of the splat being shaped only half way down, after this I lower the cutter a bit until I have gone the whole depth, something that I didn't think of doing first time round and the reason that I didn't build a jig then. This time round the brain cells worked a bit better ;-)

And here are six back splats with all the shaping done and all the holes have been sawed out by hand with a jewelers saw, all six the crest rails has also been shaped, when making sets of chairs it is important to do all the steps together while the machines are set up, you just never get the set-ups exactly the same again.

I refined the gluing jig as most of the joints are at an angle making accurate gluing difficult and last time round I had to unglue some joints and do them over as they slightly moved out of square.. I first cut out a raised piece to fit in between the back legs and glued pieces of wood on top of the insert to correctly position the back seat rail and stretcher. While I wait for glue to dry I always do some of the next steps, in this case shaping the back of the legs at the top where it is supposed to be nice and round, the left upper leg on the glued back on the left already has this done.

Showing the jig from the side.

Enjoy what is left of the week and hope you all have a fantastic weekend.
Elga

My new workroom and unexpected SNOW in my garden

The birdie has flown the nest and mom took over the bedroom for a workroom.

The room seen from the door, the orange paint will be covered with white eventually, it was my daughter's choice of color a few years ago :-)

I can just turn around on the swivel chair (sorry Karin C, I would have loved an old wooden one, but they are expensive and scarce here) and reach everything behind me, there are still space for more storage containers on the bookshelf. The radio.... because I can't work without music.

Close-up of the desk surface and that is not my new lathe, it is coming soon!

The desk from the other side, I am teaching my first workshop this Saturday at our local club, we will be making a tilt-top table and I am working hard to get the prototype finished, more about that later this week.

I want to replace the old radio cupboard with a chest of drawers for convenient storage, my house has all these funny angled walls, hence the weird shape of the work surface that still needs to be edged where my hubby cut it for me. Hmm, I should also consider adding a wall cupboard here sometime for more storage place. 

And then earlier today it snowed for a few minutes in my garden, I have lived in this area for 38 years and this is the first snow I have ever seen here.

This is the part of the garden that I can see from my workroom, until today our winter has been very mild.

Roses and snow, what a combination, it is actually time to prune the roses before spring arrives in a month.

Have a great week

Elga 

New Worktable

Ever since my hobby changed into selling miniature furniture and working on commissions, I have felt the need for more working space and power tools permanently ready for work. Here is the space I used to have in the corner of my dining room.

An old cupboard originally intended for clothes.......

Revealing it's secret when you open the doors.

It even had a light to brighten up the work surface!!! But I needed something else with a sturdier working surface and place for my smaller power tools that I use almost everyday.

My youngest daughter is moving out later this week starting the adventure of  looking after herself and I will use her bedroom as a work room. So on Saturday my husband and I started looking for possible worktables  when we stumbled across this old desk cum table. At first I wasn't too sure but when I sat down in the U-shaped cutout the possibilities of how to use it started screaming loud in my mind.

I mean, look at all that surface in front and next to me, loads of place for tools, gluing jigs etc. Looking across the table I thought, wow, how on earth am I going to use the other side, my arms are not long enough to reach anything I put down on that side. And then it dawned on me, the other three sides are not closed in like a normal pedestal desk, there are place for chairs, I like to sit while using the lathe and drill press. Because of it's unusual shape, size and the fact that it has lost it's 3 drawers it was selling for a song, so I bought it right there and then. I it is made of a lovely hardwood, Rhodesian teak I think and I have some of the wood in the garage, so I plan on making some drawers full of partitions for all my small tools that I use regularly. The table is also very sturdy, just perfect for a miniature furniture maker.

Ready to start working, the poor dining table had to move out, it will only be for a week or so until we get the workroom ready for it. I plan on doing final sanding, gluing furniture together, etc in the U cutout, the drill press is on the left with a plastic storage container with all the cutters, etc that I need right on the spot. on the right side is my small table saw with once again a storage container for extra blades, etc.

And the last open spot on the table is for my new Sherline lathe that I will be buying later this week. And the cupboard?......, it will still be used for storage, probably all my sewing stuff, fabric etc that I don't want close to my woodworking area.

Have a great week
Elga

Stitching with Animals

It has been awhile since I last posted, 4 days after I came back from Castine my mom was admitted to hospital with severe abdominal pain, she had a pancreas abscess, after getting the infection levels down, she was operated on to clean out the abscess and remove the dead tissue. She spend two and a half weeks in hospital, the first week or two was very hectic as it is quite a serious condition, but she recovered faster than what the doctor expected, although she still has a fair way to go until complete recovery.

While I was in Castine my youngest daughter bought a new kitten and he (Yoda) stole my heart as soon as I saw him.

About 10 weeks old and fast asleep, isn't he cute!

And he does find the most unusual places comfy to sleep on.

You woke me up!!!

Yoda has decided to join Anakin (yes, you are right, they were both named after Star Wars characters by my daughter) who has been my faithful stitching companion for quite a few years now, the last few nights, nice and cozy, it is winter here in the South after all.

Looks like they are becoming friends, Yoda is about 13 weeks old now.

And lastly, my newest petit point project, I am stitching it on 58 count silk to fit in an antique frame that I bought last year in the USA, once it is finished it will hang in the Victorian dining room. The chart is from Raffaella Serena's book Berlin work Samplers and Embroidery of the 19th century.

Elga

Castine 2012

On Friday 8 June, Mavis, Diane and I flew from JFK to Portland in Maine. We rented a car for the trip to Castine through the beautiful green country side and lots of delightful little towns.

We stopped in Camden for lunch and I bought this lovely painting by John Pa....? at Lucy's Dollhouse shop,  I can't figure out the last few letters of the name, I suspect it is a British artist, if anyone knows who the artist is, please let me know. Lucy's also sell beautiful antique dolls, wonderful to look at if you are a doll lover.

Late that afternoon we arrived in Castine, it was great to meet new and old friends and spend Saturday peacefully just relaxing a bit before the busy week kicked of with the opening dinner on Saturday night.

Sunday morning our classes started, mine was a full day class and more, the brass bed has 165 parts, wow, that is a lot of turning, just look at that pile of brass blanks waiting to be turned into a bed. I have never done any metal turning before and wasn't really sure what to expect, well, once I got the hang of how the tools worked which took about the first day, I really started to enjoy myself and then it was a race against time, I was determined to at least go home with all the parts finished and I did manage to do that.

Here is a photo of Bill Robertson's finished prototype bed that I took in the exhibition room, mine is still a pile of brass pieces, hopefully I will have it finished in a week or so. One of the tasks I found the hardest was drilling holes through all the brass ball bearings that is used to join all the pieces together. The task itself wasn't too difficult, but my poor hands just got sore from the handle on the drill tail stock that was just a piece of metal with no soft covering and we had to drill holes through about 50 ball bearings.

Here we are all hard at work. All in all it was a fantastic class and I learned more than I ever expected and I am eager to use my new found skills on some fire screens that has brass parts on them, like the original full scale ones in the following two photos .

Can you see the tiny brass finial on the top of this one?

And look at that brass pole on this one.

And here are some of my brass pieces together with a half stitched William Morris rug, wallpaper and fabrics that I am thinking of using in the bedroom that still needs to be built.

Castine is just an awesome experience and if you have ever wanted to go, don't wait too long, you won't be sorry
Elga.

New York

Wow, what can I say about New York, it was my first time there and it sure is a big busy city, probably not a place I want to live in, but I did enjoy my three days there. I met up with Mavis Cheyne, an IGMA scholarship winner from New Zealand that I met online on the Petitpointer Yahoo group and we went all over Manhattan in the three days that we were in NY.

On the first day we first spend a few hours in Central Park waiting for the shops to open up.

Here I am in front of Alice in Wonderland.

Next we went to Annie & Company where I bought some lovely thin velvet cord and some 100% Bamboo embroidery thread, I have been planning a small French Knot rug for a bathroom and would like to try this thread. Locally I buy socks made from bamboo which I love because they are so soft and comfortable to wear, so I just couldn't resist the thread :-)

Next stop was Tiny Dolls House shop close to the Metropolitan museum of History, and here I bought these two plates by Christopher Whitford, aren't they just stunning!

I have been looking for a vase for this little antique shelf that I bought last year at Lucy's Doll House in Camden on the way to Castine, at first I thought it was porcelain but it is actually made from some kind of metal, it fits perfectly and I have no idea who painted it. From here we did some family gift related stops.



Last stop for the day was a tool shop where I bought a lot of cutters and drill bits for my drill press that is hard to find in SA, three friends shared with me so we have quite a big variety now. I also bought another few tools needed for my class in Castine. By this time we were very tired, we started the day by taking a bus to 66th street, from there we walked up through Central Park to about 94th street where the needlework shops were situated, from there we worked our way slowly back to 46th street to the tool shop, the hotel was in 31st street, so after buying the tools all we wanted was supper and a hotel room ASAP after all that walking.



On day two we went to The Cloisters museum where we saw the magnificent Unicorn Tapestries, it took long to get there and except for the tapestries I was rather disappointed with the museum, it was a lot smaller than I expected. Next we went to the MET museum where my mission was to see the original of the easy chair that I recently made and have started to stitch for, it was wonderful to see for real and I was happy to see that my color choices wasn't far off from the original chair, by this time we were rather tired again and went to have a well deserved supper.



I think the part of NY that I enjoyed the most was spending the evening at a concert of the NY Philharmonic orchestra, they played two of my most favorite Mozart violin concerto's, just heavenly to listen to and we desperately needed to rest out tired feet.



On the last day Diane Yunnie, a doll maker from SA joined us and we went to the garment district in NY, my favorite shop was Tinsel Traders where I bought these lovely antique metal embroidery threads that will make fantastic trim in mini.



I also found these lovely silk cords on the left and the tiny twisted cord on the right at Tinsel Traders.



Mavis gave me this beautiful doll that she made as a thank you gift for arranging the whole trip, the doll is only 4cm high and Mavis knitted her whole outfit which includes all the underwear as well, what a delightful surprise.

Next: Castine
Elga

Amsterdam and Rheda

I arrived back home late on Sunday night and has spend the last few days just resting and getting back into my own time zone after 2 very busy weeks in Europe and the USA. Today I will share my adventures in Amsterdam and Rheda.



On day one Josje met me at the airport, it was so great to meet her for the first time and she instantly felt like an old friend. First we went to Mc Lennan's Pure Silks, oh boy, what a feast for the eyes, here I bought the silks in the photo above. Next we went to a quilt shop where nothing spoke to me, so I didn't buy anything there.



Next, Josje took me to Den haan en Wagenmakers, a shop that sells quilt fabrics reproduced from fabric that were used in antique Dutch quilts, I don't think that I have ever seen such a beautiful collection of quilting cottons and I really had to exercise restraint and managed to buy only the three pieces in the above photo. From there we went to meet Mary Lynne at the train station, another first meeting with an "old" friend. After a well deserved supper we went on to Elly's apartment where I was staying for the next two nights, thanks Elly!

The next morning, we all met up again for the drive to Rheda in Germany, poor Elly, it was pouring with rain the whole 3 hours and more that it took us to reach Rheda.



Lunch at Rheda, from left to right, Elly, Winnie (a fellow blogger and petit pointer member), Josje, me and Mary Lynne.



I was so lucky as to receive some very special gifts on my trip and these I received over the three days in Europe. Elly gave me a copy of the book she had published about her Mouse House (what a great idea) and the glass egg container that needs some eggs. Mary Lynne gave me the beautiful little house that she bought on her trip in France and she bought me a lovely blue and white plate from Stokesay Ware. And Winnie gave me the most beautiful piece of tiny tatting that I have ever seen that she made herself. Thanks everyone, I felt really spoiled.

And now for my show purchases.



A full dinner service with six place settings from Stokesay Ware that I ordered and paid for earlier this year, so I could just go to them and pick it up without parting with a cent :-)



A lovely tea set from Avon Miniatiures painted by an unknown Dutch artist (Josje, I think you might have a name?).



Lovely glass items by Gerd Felka, the perfume bottle's stopper is removable, just amazing work.



The figurine is by Neil Carter, another plate from Stokesay Ware and two brass strips for furniture railings etc from Christina Noriega.



A beautiful light fitting and lamp from Ray Storey.



Ivory sock darner and horn thimble by Jurgen Engel and working dress shears by Edmund Drescher.



And finally, a hob grate kit for the fireplace in my dining room from Phoenix that I have been wanting for many years.

On Monday Elly and I went to visit Josje and see her wonderful work and collection for real, that was a wonderful treat, thanks Josje, for having us and giving us a delicious lunch. From there Elly took me to the airport for my flight to New York, Elly, thanks for everything you did to make my time in Amsterdam special.

I am slowly catching up on all your blogs, I simply didn't have anytime for reading while I was away.

Elga