Teapots, Hatboxes, and Crocheted Hats

Last week was pretty good on and off stream. It feels really good working in my remodeled studio space. There are still some areas that need decluttering and some tubs of supplies to go through and whittle down, but so far I'm really relaxed in there.

Monday I continued working on teapots. Mostly because I wanted to try adding vine-like details and leave to the tomato teapots. I tried a few different variations and I think I've settled on an arrangement that I prefer. I'm thinking of one more change I'd like to make and then I'm start a production run of them.

For fun I showed how to make a marbled set of colors and made some teapots out if it. I did some solid ones too.

Tuesday I switched gears from clay and went to work on some prototype hexagonal hatboxes for next month's mini club meeting. Another member is teaching round hatboxes and I found this hexagon version in an issue of American Miniaturist. We're going to split up the members and this way everyone can learn both with more hands on instruction. I need to briefly jump ahead to Thursday for this part as well. Bear with me. ;-)

From left to right:

(Tuesday) Light green scrapbooking paper with regular paper template foundation. - It worked alright. Not too stiff when bending the paper into shape. The lid is a little loose though. I covered it with some antique lace on the sides.

Rose colored cardstock with regular paper template foundation. - This one was a little thick and harder to fold into shape. Loose lid again. It's not bad though. I used more antique lace on it.

Cream colored (striped) wallpaper sample with regular paper as foundation. - Again this one worked well. It was also a bit easier to fold than the cardstock. It got trimmed in silk ribbon.

Black and white cotton fabric with regular paper foundation. - I liked the way the cotton folded into shape. But the plain paper foundation wasn't very sturdy. The lid isn't quite as loose. Trimmed in pink silk ribbon... because "sassiness."

(Thursday) Teal cotton fabric and cardstock foundation. - This combination worked the best.  The lid fits perfectly too.

Blue silk with cardstock foundation. Gluing the foundation to the fabric (per instructions) led to some bleed-through of glue. Also the foundation paper shows at the corners.  I'm thinking if I cut things differently, that issue can go away. Not sure what to do about the glue since even using as little glue as possible showed badly.

But for this one, I covered the corners with silk ribbon and hid the massive glue stain on the lid with lace, silk roses, and no hole beads.

Back to Wednesday, I'd forgotten to print out the hatbox templates on cardstock and neglected to press my silk, so I constructed some tools for miniature millinery.

Of course the rose tool was tested out.

I also started a crocheted cloche hat. I found the pattern in a miniature magazine.

I finished it later that night. Wasn't too pleased with it, but we'll see how it turns out after it's blocked and stiffened.

It will be decorated in part with some miniature faux blackberries I made from no hole beads.

For fun on Friday I started my own cloche pattern. I got it mostly done and figured out I'd decreased too much at one point and had to frog most of it.

I need to get back to real life house work for now, so I'll leave you with a picture of Mercedes post-bath on Friday. She's gorgeous and she knows it!