Annual Swap

Well it's that time of year again!  Time for the annual swap with my miniatures Yahoo group.  Once again, I spent weeks racking my brain and searching Pinterest for an idea.  Then I spent the past several months making them.  I finally got them done and sent out yesterday!  You are going to have to wait to see what they are though.  The swaps aren't being mailed back out to us until March and I don't want to ruin anyone's surprise!  The theme this year is "home accessories." I see I never posted a photo of what I made last year, so I can show you that.  Last year the theme was "kitchens."

Kitty Fashions

Lolly learned how to knit this past week.  I had tried to teach her to knit several years ago but it didn't really take.  This time, I showed her how to do two stitches and she took right over.  She picked it up way faster than I did.  She's made several cowls for her cat, Callie, and a patchwork blanket.  She's got a line of hats in mind, and a ballerina outfit I believe.  Fortunately, Callie is fairly tolerant.

The Front Is (Mostly) Done

All the siding, windows, and trim are on the front of the house!  The front door was tricky and took me awhile to decide what to do.  Why is that, you ask?  Well, the door openings on the plans use Bauder Pine doors.  The house pieces were all cut ages ago to match the plans.  However,now Bauder Pine no longer exists. Houseworks doors are too narrow.  In fact, I looked up every 1/2" scale door I could find on the internet and couldn't find any wide enough. I considered redoing the whole front wall with an opening to fit a Houseworks door but I had already put a Bauder Pine door on the back.  I didn't think it would look right for the back door to be wider than the front door, even though you don't ever see them at the same time. In the end, I decided to make the door from scratch. How does it look?

The removable walls were also tricky.  The plans don't explain how to do the corner trim.  At this point, the corner trim is glued to the front wall with a space on the sides so when the wall is put in place the trim will cover the sides too.  In order to allow for a big enough gap to cover the side walls the only about 1/8' of the trim could to be glued to the front.  I don't know how well that is going to hold but I didn't want to use a wider trim.  I could have glued the corner trim to the front and then cut another piece to cover the sides but that would have left a seam.  If I had to do this over again I would try making the removable walls a little wider so the corner trim could be glued on flush and would cover the sides.  It might be hard to tell from the photo, but I used 1/2' corner trim.  I cut the part glued to the front wall to 1/4" to match all the others corners of the house.  I left the sides at 1/2" so it would be wide enough to cover the sides.  I might have to go back and redo this at some point if this doesn't work.

There is a gap between the trim and the walls so the side walls can fit in there.

A Porch with a Horrible Window

I have decided that choosing the Puritan for my first miniature house project was a REALLY BIG MISTAKE.  I should have started with, oh I don't know, a one room cottage.  Or at least a small kit house that came with all the components.

Over the past week or so I have been working on the porch.  I got all the siding on and painted.  Today I started working on the windows.  One of the things that makes this plan complicated is the fact that there is a triple window on the sunroom.  Since there aren't any triple windows to buy, I had to bash it.  I had a double window and a single window.  I cut one side off each.  The wood splintered when I cut it and the pieces did not fit together well.  Also, my double window was a smidge shorter than the single.  It looked terrible!

After some thought, I decided to cut off the top layer of trim on each piece.  I cut a new piece to replace what I cut off and to cover the gap.  Then I cut the pieces that went under the window off and replaced them with one solid piece.

There was a big gap on the inside that I had to fill with wood filler.  Hopefully once it's all painted it won't look too bad.

Painting and Flooring

The neighbor painted the outside of his house today.   He was pretty excited to get it done and eager to start building furniture.

My house is coming along.  All the rest of the exterior pieces have been cut.  They just need to be sanded, primed and  attached to the house with hinges.  I make it sound so easy, right?

I cut out a piece of hex tile for the bathroom floor.  When I bought it (on-line because there is not much available in 1/2" scale locally) the website did not state the tile measurements.  I was hoping for penny tile but they work out to be about 3".  I guess it will have to do.  I spread spackle mixed with gray paint over the whole thing to look like grout and then wiped it off.  It came out really grungy looking.  It would be perfect if that's the look I was going for!   However, none of the rest of the house has been aged or grunged.....

Bedcover

So today hubby but was wearing this shirt with this awesome teensy houndstooth-like print.

It's a relatively new shirt and I'm like nice shirt.  But I look closer, at the print.  I love houndstooth! So I say "Hey, when that shirt shrinks or gets stained or something, can I have it?"

Of course he wonders why.  I fess up.  " Because it would make an awesome print for my dollhouse!"  

And Lolly says "What would you do with it?  Make a table cloth out of it?"

"No," I replied.  "It would make an awesome bedcover!"

Hubby is all " It's not a bedcover!"

" Yes it is," I replied.  "With pink sheets."

And he says "It's a shirt!"

"Okay," I say. "well the next time you wear that to work, remember, it's a bedcover.  With pink sheets."

I mean really - can't you just PICTURE it?  So I offered to do his laundry for him next week.  I don't know why he said no....

Knitty Griity Hat

The ladies at my local yarn store showed me how to seam my hat from Knitty Gritty.  I followed the  directions to knit a hat for an infant, but I guess my stitches are big because it came out child-sized.

I took a short Knitty Gritty break to crochet a toy for the cat.  I think he liked it.