Little Visitors

All day I kept hearing the oddest squeaky noises coming from my tall trees. There was at times a great rustling up there too.

 

I was in the west court yard working in the garden pruning branches and pinching off dead flower heads. I went in to get something to drink and when I came back there were three baby raccoons playing all around the table. They were being watched by Merlin (one of my cats) who was over seeing it all from the table top.

 

After a few minutes of watching I remembered my camera. Sadly, just in time to see all three of them going up the ladder into another tree. The smallest one was having a bit of trouble going up the rungs. 

 

They will be back I have to keep cat food out there.

 

 

Who is/was Alex Rothwell Miniature Artisan?

The first thing I do when I want to investigate any subject is go to Google. Sadly, this time it didn't help very much.

I bought this solid brass lamp on eBay by Alex Rothwell. While I could find a few of his other pieces, I couldn't find anything out about him. I assumed that was because he had stopped making miniatures before the internet got going.  If you know anything about him I would love to hear it. Like when he was active, where he is from and if he is still around.

His lamp is really gorgeous. I was lucky to win the bid on eBay.

For Linda... She asked to see my finish mirror in a miniature setting. 

I managed to get the mirror out of my compact and cut it to fit the frame. It is nice to have a real glass mirror in it. It does makes it very hard to photograph though.

 

Casting Pewter & Apoxie Putty.

 I did a repair on a French frame I bought in Etsy. The frame arrived today from France. It had been broken and was missing a couple of small parts. The first thing I did was use Apoxie putty to carve the missing pieces. I did that right on the antique metal frame. Then I sand cast a new frame in pewter. I intend to use this for a mirror. Pewter melts at 400 degrees, so I can do this casting in my kitchen melting the metal in a cast iron skillet on my stove. The sand is so fine you can press your finger in it and it will pick up your finger print.

 

Long ago Catherine http://miniaturemaisondesouris.blogspot.com/ sent me a jar of her favorite gilding wax. I assume it is a wax. it smells heavenly! She sent me her favorite color which she thought most resembles real antique gold gild. I took the finished pewter frame and compared it to a early eighteenth century gilded frame I have, it was a perfect match! I can't read the directions about how you are supposed to use it as they are in French. I am wondering if I am supposed to buff it a little with a cloth now that it is dry?

 

 

 

I also made the French architectural mold and cast a few in Apoxie putty. I think I am going to try a different material to cast them in. The putty takes too long to harden and I don't like the surface look of it..

 

 

 

 

French Exterior ARCHITECTURAL Embellishment

When I found this vintage, French brass stamping, I thought it looked a lot like a exterior architectural embellishment for over a window or a door (in 1: 12 scale). It is exactly 8 cm. long. It reminded me of so many of the buildings Linda Carswell has taken pictures of on her blog. http://une-petite-folie.blogspot.com/

I am thinking about making a mold of it and casting several of them. Not that I am planning on making a French house. It is just that I have never see French architectural embellishment pieces for buildings. There are three holes that have been drilled in the piece but that is very easy to fix.

Would anyone be interested? Let me know what you think.

Must remember to check... spell check. hahaha

Spring is busy. There is always a lot to do around here as the weather warms up. The garden always needs attention in the spring. I have been busy planting things and doing some minor repairs.

A new piece of petit point is almost finished.

Diamonds and Roses Petit Point Cushion

I have been busy stitching another petit point pillow on # 56 silk gauze. It fits very well with the chair and the carpet I think. Much better I'm afraid then the rabbits do.  So they may have to find a different spot to live. I have another one in mind that will work much better. Though I am always happy to hear what you think.

Despite what it may look like, we are having a dark and dreary winters day. So apologies for these photos. 

Brer Rabbit Petit Point Cushion...4,290 stitches!

                                                                                 

 I have always loved William Morris designs. One of my favorites is Brer Rabbit. So when I saw Nicola Mascall's chart on #56 canvas I thought I would try it.

I have no where to buy the right weight silk threads for this size canvas locally. I wanted colors that might look good with the Aunt Olga petit point carpet I stitched. So I chose some silk threads from a needle point shop here. I hate ordering colors online. They never look the way they did on my screen. 

The threads were slightly too heavy, which made stitching this a real chore. Still... I think it worked out in the end. Luckily I had matching silk fabric for the back of the cushion. It looks great on the antique rose color chairs I made.

Are you losing "Followers" in your GOOGLE Blogger?

In December I had 930 "Followers" in my blog . Suddenly, over night in fact, I had gone down to 903. Then it stopped. I was mystified.

In the past two days I have lost many more! Last night I sat looking at my Blogs Dashboard and watched as my Follower numbers dropped dramatically. It totally freaked me out. I thought what sort of mischief is this. I wondered if I would even have a blog when I woke up this morning.

I found the answer in the Google Help Forum. You can read about it here... https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/blogger/7cZFok8dd20;context-place=forum/blogger

I see Josje found the answer there too.

You would think Google could have put a notice on our dashboards so we didn't have to go through angst of trying to figure out what was happening.

It took me nearly six years to get to 930. I was amazed and grateful so many people were interest. Frankly, I am rather hacked off that all those people can no longer visit my blog. 

Someone please tell me how it benefits Google to do that?