Stitching at the Railway Inn

OK, so I'm not really stitching at the Railway Inn, but I do have a couple of finished pieces to show you and some progress on my new 48th scale public house. I'm no drinker (at all) but it seemed to me that any English village street worthy of the name would surely have a 'pub'.
Stitching first ...

I think I told you that we'd had a lesson in beading at the Guild's last meeting and I'd wanted to make a little purse ... well here it is. I've not made the chain long enough to wear (on purpose) so this is hanging on my dressing table mirror at the moment - along with that metal bird-adorned heart that I showed you last week. I'm really pleased with the way this turned out, and at least I've used up some of those excess beads I bought for making the name badge.

They are called amulet purses and, according to Wikipedia, an amulet is an object that protects a person from trouble (or evil), and usually take the form of a stone, gemstone, small statue, ring or charm, so I guess that an amulet purse was designed to hold such a thing and keep it close to your heart (if the purse were hung around your neck). Mine doesn't have anything inside it - yet.

I also finished my little goldwork Russian icon.

and another piece of lace. This was stitched in pieces and then assembled and mounted on a piece of calico, which I'm going to turn into a book wrap.

Now here is another photograph of my Cottage Stores, from the outside, and ...

... on the inside. I still need to make a table for the room upstairs, and probably a rug for the floor I think. I made the little linen cupboard from pieces of card.

Now here is the Railway Inn

 First of all the outside.

The inside of the front elevation. This is actually all decorated to match the interior now but I have no photo of that yet to show you.

And here are the rooms. I'm not sure that I will keep the bar where it is at the moment as I have a bench, some tables and some stools to fit in to this room as well and the current arrangement limits the space I have considerably. So the bar might actually end up across the front of the fireplace on the ground floor. I'll play around with the layout for a while before I make any final decision.

Spring is just around the corner

When it's cold outside and the weatherman assures us that there is more snow on its way, I just needed some reminders that it will soon be spring. I planted up these little beauties and set them beside my kitchen sink to cheer me up on dark days.

 There are signs of life in the garden too ...

 

This verbena bush flowers right outside my studio window

These primroses are right outside my front door ...

See all the young shoots pushing up through the earth around these early snowdrops.

And the hellebores are beginning to open their beautiful purple flowers by the side of the pond.

Yesterday the sun was shining and I headed out to a nearby town for a little retail therapy and thought I'd share my purchases with you. Nothing here cost very much (only one or two pounds) but they've brightened my life.

This shabby little metal heart is hanging on the mirror on my dressing table

 This one hangs on my dining room door

I bought these two scraps of Indian fabric a few weeks ago - I have no idea yet what I will do with them but aren't the colours and the handiwork gorgeous?

I found these two little sewing sets in a charity shop - for far less than it would have cost me to make them, so home they came. This one, I think, will go in my sewing room.

 There are even 'pins' in the tiny pincushion

Here's the second one on the settee in the retreat.

 I bought this pretty little pencil case as it's just the right size to hold my miniature knitting. This lacy blanket is being worked on size 0.8 needles using Venne Colcoton (about the thickness of machine sewing thread). When I began I thought I'd never get the hang of it but now I have the pattern firmly in my head it's starting to grow more quickly.

This little woollen blanket (knitted on size 1.00 needles with 1 ply wool) grew much more quickly.

Now, here is my newest 48th scale building  - the Railway Inn.

 I've wallpapered the rooms inside this time as I'd managed to find some scrapbooking paper with very tiny designs which I think are just right for this scale. The sink which is sitting on the top floor won't stay in this building as there's only one room on each floor (hence the false doors on the back walls). The ground floor will be the bar, with a living room on the 1st floor and bedroom on the 2nd floor. The doors lead out to imaginary washroom facilities on the ground floor (for customers' use), a staircase and a kitchen and bathroom upstairs.

At the last meeting of our Embroiderers' Guild a group of us did a beading workshop and learned to make name badges. Here's mine. It's a little wavy around the edges but not bad for a first attempt. I enjoyed it so much that I've borrowed a book on making bead purses from the library - so watch this space.