And Even More.....

No End In Sight.....

I Am Certain you will get bored, Dear Readers, if all I show you are Teeny Tiny updates of the Petit-point stitching project, and endless updates on the lilac blossoms! I have managed to add a few stitches (maybe as many as 60) to the cream background, and when held in front of a dark surface, you can actually see where they are! There is a long way to go still with this project, but I enjoy working on it in little bits. And I managed to get Almost two blossoms of the lilac finished this week... I was really hoping to manage two... but real life gardening got in the way. At Last I was able to work a little more in the real garden, uncovering the beds after this very long Winter! So the mini projects were fit into the spare minutes this week, and there is not much to show! As I said, I finished one more blossom and florets for the second, but did not get it assembled.

I am gradually getting the "production line" figured out...

making the clusters all at the same time...

But still, the gluing and waiting for it to dry takes time....

 and I have yet to figure out just how much time it takes

 from beginning to end for one blossom!

So rather than Bore you with Blossom production lines....

 I thought I would "revisit" a few more of those Old Unfinished Projects.... 

because Birgit was kind enough to remind me

 that I had not mentioned ALL of them!

Well, one of them that Most of you are familiar with is Hardwick Hall....

 and my Mother mentioned that it is also

the name of an ancient House in Britain.... 

which I was aware of... 

and must say that this House is No Relation

 of That Hardwick Hall....

 or if so, is of such distant and diminished cousinship

 as not to matter at all!

 

Here it is in its current unfinished state....

But I wanted to show you more of the Kitchen.

My Mother had also recently mentioned the Fridge...

saying it was exactly like the one she remembers

 from her childhood home back in the thirties!

I wasn't sure I would be able to find a fridge

 small enough to fit in this kitchen..... 

and was prepared to try to build one...

But I really think this one is perfect!

I will need to build a small cabinet to fit in the corner beside it.

This is such a wonderfully detailed miniature... 

heavy cast metal... with working door and removable shelves!

 

And there is still room for a work table too!

(And we won't mention all the unfinished wiring

 that still needs to be done before

 the hearth wall can be fixed in place....)

And you also have recently visited Rose Thorne Cottage.....

Which sits beside my drawing table.....

(For the Winter at least....!)

Where a teeny bit of light has been

 cast into the incomplete kitchen..... 

with the discovery of the perfect hutch...!

(Who knows how long it will take to complete this...!)

And speaking of Kitchens, Dear Readers, 

perhaps the most complete kitchen I have

 is the one belonging to Sally May and Chip...

In "The Shabby Sister House"....

Which is very similar to "The Lovely Old Dollhouse"

only it needs even more work done than 

"The Lovely Old Dollhouse " ever needed!

But don't worry, Sally May's husband Chip is a builder, 

and he assures her it will not be long before it is all fixed up!

And in case you wondered, this house

 has a remarkable ability to live in two different "eras"...

 it also houses Tommy and Beatrice and Caroline's Family

 while their "Town House" (The Cupboard House) is under construction!

They are Living in 1852, in case you wondered!

I am afraid the living conditions are bit primitive....

 there is still no electric lighting and no indoor plumbing!

And let us not forget that the Glass House 

beside The folly is also still unfinished....

No hardware on the doors, no trim on the roof windows...

And I need to run the wiring for the light ....

 which is one of those after-thoughts

 that can cause all sorts of problems!

But we will leave that for another day...

Because that is not all!

Surely you remember the incomplete Gypsy Wagons!

Both still under construction.... 

because the interiors really need to be done

 before you glue them together!

 And the interiors need to be so different...

The Fortune Teller's Wagon....

And The Tinker's Wagon....

The Interiors are only just begun.... 

with the Fortune Teller's having a Night Forest

 painted on the Sleeping compartment walls.....

And The Tinker's Wagon has horses frolicking in a meadow....

Yes, there is a long way to go before these Wagons are complete!

 

And let us not forget that Pollyanna herself 

has a few unfinished projects....

Piling up in her Not Yet Finished Attic Workroom.....

And there is even a whole Wagon full 

of Teeny Tiny Ladies seeking their Homes....

They were hoping to find something suitable

 amongst Pollyanna's projects....

 but now they are not so sure...

And need I remind you that the two youngest sisters

 of Lady Evelyn de Paradise are still awaiting their gowns?

And as for forgetting (or overlooking)

 a Project or two....

 I sometimes have trouble determining

 where one project ends and the next begins.... 

So the Wizard's Cave under The Castle... 

is or is not part of The Castle Project...?

And yes... the Stories....

They seem to have No End...!

(Will Tiny Bear Ever find the Little Dolls....? 

Will the Little Dreamers Ever find their Home...? 

Will Daphne's Story Ever be finished...?....) 

(Who knows these answers...?.... Not I!)

Ah Dear Readers, I hope I have not bored you

 with this little Tour through Time!

 

And did you want to see the fourth completed lilac blossom?

 

These tiny blossoms might be taking up all my Time, Dear Readers,

But I can promise you there will be More and more... and more!

And There's no end in sight!

(Because I wouldn't want you to be Bored!)

New......

And Not So New..... Progress!

It was a busy weekend in my RL World, Dear Readers, with the removal of the last Christmas decorations and the Beginning of a major refurbishing of one of the bedrooms in my house, so not much got done on the mini houses. But whenever I say that, I often discover that I got more done than I thought I did! Since the Christmas Trees have been taken down, the Doll Houses have been shuffled around again, and it suddenly feels as though there is a Lot of room, and the new positions of the houses makes it easier to see what needs to be done. So I started to "chip away" at the problems I was having with the Willowcrest. The windows continue to be the most obvious sticking place when it comes to moving forward with this building! Above you can see the kitchen window from the exterior, after I had already added the cross pieces at the bottom of the windows where they abut the sill. I could not find a good picture from before.... but I had already decided that it looked too unrealistic to leave them with no "bottom" to the windows! And to make matters worse, this window was originally constructed with the exterior sill sitting above the level of the window openings so that it would show from the interior and look awful! (It must be a mistake in the kit design!)

This picture shows the interior view (or it would if it was lit well enough... sorry about that!) where you can see the window sill and the added pieces at the window bottoms when looking out from the inside.

And since the kitchen wall still has not been attached, 

you can see it better here.... along with the larger pieces I am adding 

on the interior to hide both the exterior pieces.

And testing it with the sink I plan to use in this kitchen...... 

before adding the interior window sill.....

Which you can see here.

And I think it looks okay, even though it would look better

 if I had realized before adding the muntins...

that the windows would need an extra "bottom" piece.

But it turns out that once the sink is positioned in front of the window......

you can't see much of the sill anyway!

And while I had the sink out, I glued all its pieces on too!

And while I was adding the fiddly little pieces to the windows....

 

I also added the cross bars and muntins to the cellar windows.....

although here, I decided that there was not enough room 

at the bottom to add the window bottoms.

Probably not noticeable to anybody else....

But I think it looks strange... and will probably

 hide it behind a bush when the house is finished!

And here you can see a test run of the kitchen stove....

Not a new piece, but I haven't shown it here yet!

It resembles the stove in my RL kitchen.....

because this house resembles my RL house in the basic layout, 

so I decided to use that to influence some of the design choices for this project!

Here you can see the mini stove on top of the RL kitchen stove!

The rooms in this kit are really quite small.....

just like the ones in my RL house....

You start to notice that as soon as you try to place the furniture in them!

Here you can (sort of) see the Willowcrest back in the construction area....

(It is really difficult to get good pictures at this time of year!)

But I think, Dear Readers, that I am getting closer 

to being ready to glue the walls on this house!

 

 

I have also decided that I will need to paint all those "trees" in the parlor, 

and not just leave them the unpainted color of the sculpey clay.

 

 Here you can sort of see them as they are 

(picture taken months ago when there was still a little sunlight...!)

I think they need to look as though they are the same carved stone as the fireplace... 

otherwise they neither look real nor like stone.... 

but just sort of raw... and that has been bothering me!

And while I have debated with myself for a long time about the name for this house....

in my mind I have always thought of it as "Hardwick Hall".

Yes, it is a bit of a Grandiose name for such a tiny bit of space!

But it belongs to my Witches, and it does have a fairly Grand facade....

and I am just getting tired of calling it "the Willowcrest"!

So I am making it official..... "Hardwick Hall" it is!

And on an Entirely different note... also a New beginning...

There is a new persona in my doll Worlds.....

She is made by the very talented Sumaiya.

Sumaiya's blog was one of the first blogs I discovered 

years ago as I was finding my way back into miniatures, 

and I have always been enchanted with her exotic and elegant dolls.

As soon as I saw this one posted on Sumaiya's blog,

I knew she had to come play in my Little Worlds!

She comes with the name "Meera"

But I think that is only part of her name...

She obviously has the ability to hold her listeners Spellbound....

and perhaps, like Sheherezad, 

she has a thousand songs to sing...

or ballads to enchant us....!

I do not know yet what her story will be... 

or where she will lead me...

But that, Dear Readers, 

is part of the mystery of anything New!

And I do hope you have enjoyed 

all this "Little" Progress!