Some Little Things

Wandering around JoAnn Fabrics last week resulted in a pattern and fabric catching my eye.

Artie "helped" of course.

I still need to clean up some threads and topstitch around the zipper.

I followed the pattern exactly and didn't like a couple of things. I'm going to make another one with some changes and see how it works out.

Saturday was our mini club's workshop day. Instead of doing the N.A.M.E. project like we usually do, we all worked on things for our hat shop.

The straw hats were actually make by Kat the Hat Lady years ago. I bought a handful of them undecorated. The purple hat is one I started as an example when I taught everyone that style of hat. I spent a good portion of my time teaching everyone (one on one) how to make silk ribbon roses. 

That's all for now. Time to find a bite to eat and ponder what to do for the rest of the day.

Mini Millinery Madness

Note: Somehow this didn't get published on Sunday. Sorry for that!

Well perhaps not madness, but I'm certainly having fun with these little hats! In anticipation of June's mini group meeting, I started figuring out the top two fabric hat choices from Millinery Magic by Barbara Hillier Smith: the Gibson Girl and a flat brimmed hat.

I decided to make two of each hat; one in cotton and the other in silk. That way there's more than one example of each hat and everyone can see the effects of both fabrics. Then I decided I wanted to make the pillbox hat design for myself... just because.

So Monday and Tuesday were spent constructing mini hats. The Gibson girl hats are the black and white floral and the blue silk. I only made the flat brimmed hat in cotton on Monday. I needed to unearth my other silk colors.

Other silk was reclaimed and used for the other flat brimmed hat and a pillbox on Tuesday. The grey pillbox is cotton.

There were nasty storms on Wednesday, so I didn't stream. The PC needed to stay off and unplugged.

Thursday I decorated three of the hats. The rose silk pillbox's details were inspired by many of the pillbox hat images I found online. I used the same fabric to create the fan shape. The grey pillbox got a hefty bow out of mini rick rack, three silk roses, and a dark feather.

The blue silk hat got the royal treatment. Lace roselets, silk roses encrusted with silver no hole beads, silk leaves, feathers, a silk band, and some pearls. Here's another view of the blue silk hat's decor. I used some of the 2 mm glass pearls I had stashed away for a rainy day.

This flat brimmed hat got a cotton band. I need to make some daisies to attach to the back on top of the bow.

I'm still figuring out the bits and bobs for the other two hats.

Friday was a day for research. I combed through my entire stash of books and magazines looking for tutorials on parasols, purses, other hat designs, gloves, shoes, and anything else that might go into a hat shop.I came away with quite a stack and have chosen a few to test out and show to the mini club members. They can decide which ones they want to learn.

I also took the time and ordered several spools of 4 mm silk ribbon. My stash had never been large and I've already wiped out one shade of purple. So in a week I shall have a silken rainbow to work with.

Saturday I prowled through thrift shops looking for deals on silk blouses. I found a couple in colors that I don't already have. One is a silk-cotton blend in a delicate shade of purple and drapes ever so well. I'm already seeing at least one gown made from it in the future. For now though, I believe there will be a parasol and some gathered flowers on a hat of some sort. There was also a thin leather vest in a mulberry color. I decided to grab it up too.

That's all for now. I'm going to go tidy up the studio, do some housework, and perhaps play with that leather vest and some purse patterns. See you next week!

Finishing Things

I started the week off with the two N.A.M.E. Day storefronts that have been sitting on my off-hand desk since March. I'd forgotten how much still needed painting and varnishing, so I didn't get the assembly done until I was done with the stream.

On Tuesday's stream both rooms got filled with contents (mostly)  from my stash.

FH made all the jewelry pieces on black velvet displays in both rooms.

This room's dress, hat, and parasol were purchased when I was in college. I've had them cooling their figurative heels in a box for about a decade. About time they were out and able to be enjoyed! The purse was a gift a long time ago. I did make the hat stand and perfume bottles.

The dress in this room was made by a friend who has passed away. It's a little too tall for the room, but I didn't want to alter it.  Most of the perfume bottles were made when I was on a bottle-making kick a few years ago. The parasol was one of the first mins I ever made... and it shows. I couldn't afford silk back then. The wooden hat and jewelry stands I made on stream Tuesday.

These are the remaining hat stands made on stream. They'll get used in my regular hat shop. I need to see if I can find the wooden spheres again. No clue where these came from originally.

This Gibson Girl hat got started but then the glue had to dry.

Wednesday and Thursday saw me hiding from lots of noise and strangers. Too tense to work on minis, but we have a brand new roof on the house! I did do some sketching for some teapot ideas though.

Friday and Saturday FH and I worked on things around the house. But I made an overlay to help make the stream video look better. Today we're helping a friend with a project, so I won't get back to the studio until Monday's stream.

Until next week!

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!