Clean? I Don't Think So!!!

I have been cleaning and knitting.  I have this much done of a sock for myself. I like the colors.

It's just plain knitting yarn. Not particularly for socks, but I like it.

While I was doing that and going to a movie, I told Tessie to clean her cottage so that I could take photos when I got back...

When I got back, I ran my fingers over the floors and came up with very dirty, dusty fingers...

She kept saying, "But I did it!".  I could tell just by looking that she was fibbing!

I am not doing any new things for those that can't keep things clean.

I am now going to check on Zar's trailer... If it isn't in good enough shape to take photos, he is not getting anything done either!  I an going on strike until some of those little people do some BIG work! I put the work into the places that they live.  The least they could do is keep them clean. I am officially on strike now!!!

Back to knitting.  See you tomorrow.

Letty is Mini Me!!!

Yup.  She just shortened it.  Lettice is now Letty.  She shortened it by one letter... Oh well. That's better than nothing.

This morning, when I got up. Tessie was still snoring to beat the band!

I looked into her cottage and saw Lettie making toast. 

She has already found a friend.  The rattler that keeps Tessie company when she cooks, has taken a liking to Letty and was keeping her toes warm. 

He also likes toast and even the crumbs count.

I decided that this couldn't be good... Letty using Tessie's kitchen and Tessie's snake keeping her feet warm???

Not a good sign for me...

I was about to switch with Letty and she turned around and sat down across from Tessie at the table....

She brought Tessie's favorite breakfast treat.  Pizza!

I don't think that now is a good time to switch.  They are having such a good time that I would be interrupting...

I have a feeling that I was about ten seconds too late to go with my plan..........

I do believe that the two of them are going to be fast friends.  So much for the switching bodies plan.  Neither of them are going to go for it now.  Letty told Tessie and the both of them just laughed and laughed... I think that I had better head for the hills and hide somewhere fast!  Either that or I could offer Tessie pizza AND bug beer.  I kind of doubt that that would top having a new friend an cohort.

I am going to go hide somewhere and try to salvage the plan or come up with a new one.

See you tomorrow.....I hope!!!

You Clean It!!!

I am still working in the bedroom... OK. I cleaned the closet. 

No I am not going to bore you with photos of that.

I also have this bookcase pretty well cleaned out now... There are actually a few holes that need filling! That won't take long.

I told Tessie that she needed to clean her cottage... and what did she say?

"If you want it cleaned, YOU clean it!!!"

The nerve of some people!

I have been cleaning in here for the past two days. 

See where she is sitting? That's where she has been the whole time. The only time she moved was when she was trying to claim every mini room in the bedroom.

Needless to say, I worked around her cottage. I am NOT going to do her housekeeping for her.

She can live in squalor if she doesn't want to clean it herself.

Then she had the nerve to ask when I was starting work on her travel trailer? I think not!

I wonder if  Zar would like something new?

Or maybe I will invite somebody new to live in the neighborhood. Where's Mister Rodgers when we need him?  See you tomorrow.

Relapse...

I got the main floor of Tessie's cottage cleaned up this morning...

Tessie disappeared as soon as I started...

I am still feeling lousy.

Tessie now claims to have caught my cold...

I highly doubt it.  I haven't seen her sneeze once in the last week.  Not a lot of coughing unless I cough and then she follows suit.

Kota, on the other hand does these sympathy coughs every once in a while...

That jus makes me cough more. 

I don't want to play this game anymore.  I want to be well. This is NOT fun.

I went in and put a few more things away in the workroom. 

Pretty soon, that isn't going to work.  I have just about everything put away...

I want to stop coughing and sneezing now!!!!!!

See you tomorrow.

Round and Round We Go!

Since I changed the position of the worktable, Kota has a perfect perch to help me work...  I am not sure if that is good or bad.  He criticizes my work as I go.  Makes me do it right... Frankly, I think that I should change it back to where he didn't have such a front row seat to what I am doing...

I went to Wednesday Witches earlier.  We made purses.

When I got home, I did a bit of rearranging in some of the minis. You have seen the boxes and buildings before...

This one was mainly a matter of straightening things that had fallen over.

Same with the rusty needle.  It is in pretty good shape, so there is not a lot to do but straightening. 

I went to do Tessie's cottage, however... She made a mess of the main floor and then went to bed...

She can straighten this one herself.  It's her house... She is the housekeeper.

I am not straightening up the main floor after she has had a day of making potions... Most of which will probably be used on me, if she can get away with it...

The potion book was opened to the page of ways to get other people to do your housework...

I am NOT going anywhere near her when I know that she has just mixed a potion for that!

I am out of here!  See you tomorrow.

Bribery Sometimes Works Best...

We got the kits from HBS this morning. Tessie was the first to open the boxes... She has no fingernails left.  Ripping and Tearing are her main means of opening mail.  Boxes are the roughest.

She is delighted with the trailer.  She wants it done up as a Gypsy caravan...

She already has a list a mile long.  She wants her rooftop garden covered for the whole length of the trailer... Err... I mean caravan.

It is not to be called a house trailer, like they did in the old days...

So... The first thing to do is close in the roof. 

She took one look at the room box and said simply " another colonial room, please".  She seems to like those.  If she keeps it up, she will have a whole colonial house in the book case. 

It may be kind of weird if I let her have her way.  All the rooms will be exactly the same size and shape.

I may have to put a stop to the colonial thing.

I told her that I couldn't start the trailer until after I finished doing the Christmas presents...

And then I got a brilliant idea.  I told her, "And by the way.  We won't be starting any of those until your cottage is spit and polished!"

Amazing... It took about an hour, but she has everything spitted and polished and back where it belongs. Zar is on the first floor with the animals and the pizza.

She is on the second, where she has a better view of the TV.  And Friskie, the alligator, has moved back in.  He refused to stay there while it was a mess... He has been living in the colonial bedroom...

Now it is all up to me.  I have to get the Christmas presents finished and then I can go to work on the caravan. 

Back to work.

See you tomorrow.

A Whip and a Chair...

That's what I threatened Tessie with this morning.

I have been cleaning like crazy and she has been going in the opposite direction. 

I caught her sleeping in the colonial bedroom again this morning. She said that she couldn't get to her bedroom in the cottage.

Then she proceeded to spend a couple of hours in the kitchen, reading. At least that room was cleaner.

That could be because I helped her to do that one earlier in the morning...

A couple of the Wednesday Witches showed up to play for a while this morning.  We had a good time. We tried out the new porch furniture.  They approved.

Then we worked on some minis.  Each of us had different projects going.

I made Cuban Tamales for lunch and we made short work of those.

I checked on Tessie a couple of times and she seemed to be making progress... At least the bedroom was looking better than it did earlier in the day...

Then I made the mistake of turning my back on her...

This is what I saw!  Guess what Tessie is going to be doing tomorrow?  No wonder she said that she couldn't get to her bed!

The whole worktable is covered in rubbish!  She hasn't cleaned her own place in a month!  No wonder she likes sleeping in the colonial bedroom...

I think that she bribed Zar to help clean up there.  I also think that Zar is about to throw his hands in the air and go home to his nice quiet little Tudor Trailer... It may be small, but it's neat.  He does take care of his place.

I don't think that I told you.  I found that I had 40.00 worth of gift certificates left at HBS.  I ordered another trailer kit with part of it and another room box with the rest.  As soon as Tessie found out, she announced that since Zar got the last one, this one was hers.  She wants it made into a Gypsy Caravan.  That's all I need.  Tessie as a Gypsy Fortune Teller, traveling around telling fortunes.  She already has Madam Tessie's Fortune Telling Tent... Here we go again!

See you tomorrow.

What a Ruckus!

This morning, about three o'clock, I was awakened by lots of clunks, bangs and scrapes...

When I got up at quarter to six and wandered out to the kitchen, I noticed something different in the family room... The She Shed and the He shed were on top of the bookcase.  I didn't put them there.  They must have flew in under someone else's power... Guess who?

I proceeded back  to the bedroom with my coffee and just inside the bedroom door, was the cottage like Tessie's old one that I use at Christmas... It had most of the stuff from the sewing cottage that I made for Tessie and a skeleton besides... I am not exactly sure where he was hiding, but Tessie obviously didn't want him in HER house.

It seems that she is reclaiming her original cottage from when she first moved out of her cell in the workroom...

In order to do that, she had to dump the stuff that was in it for the sewing cottage. 

When I got there, she was sitting in a strategically placed chair, watching the big TV. 

She ignored me for a while, then she looked me straight in the eye and said, "You know, this is still MY cottage."  Emphasis on the MY.

And then, "I am reclaiming it! It needs some updating.  You are going to have to get to work. Why did you replace the puce walls with green in the bedroom? I can't sleep in green!"  And then, "I still need frames for the windows and new curtains.  I don't know what you did with the old ones, but I want new ones anyway, so get to work!!!"

Well, I guess I know what I will be doing for the next couple of days.  Puce paint and curtains to match... UGH!

I hear Tessie calling from the other room.  I guess I may as well get started. It's better than building her a whole new house! Don't tell her that. She will start rummaging under the bed again. We don't want that!

See you tomorrow.

Rugwork or Nothing...

That's what you get today... I did a lot of stitching on the rug for the conservatory... But it doesn't look like a lot...

I did some more on the outer, narrow boarder... It's hard to tell because a lot of the stitching I did there is almost the same color as the canvas. 

Tessie is in her sewing cottage pouting... I am evidently not working fast enough for her.

I should say that she is in a snit.

She sits in the corner, downstairs for a while.

If you want a closer look, just poke the pictures.

Then she moves up to the sewing room... Not to sew, mind you.  Just to keep me checking on her.  I don't want her moving into the workroom to pout.  When she does that, she moves things around... She's looking for things to put in the latest project. 

Right now, the workroom is in pretty good shape... If she goes in there, I will have to start cleaning all over again.

I am going now to lock the workroom door and hope that she doesn't remember how to zap herself in there... Wish me luck.

See you tomorrow.

More Minis... Mostly...

OK. So this isn't mini, but I am waiting for the glue to dry. 

I have been seeing garden totems all over the net and decided to try my hand.  I got the glass at Goodwill and my own cupboard, so it cost me next to nothing.

The black plate at the bottom is for stability.  It will be covered with plants, dirt and rocks when it is in place.

I have enough different glass to do a couple more.  I have to see how this one works out first.

We finished the moving process yesterday and Reggie seems to be happy with the move.

He has a better view of everything that is going on in the house.

As for Cordelia... She is never home, so she doesn't care where the house is.

She spends most of her time elsewhere...

Tessie took over the space where the Forest Fantasy Cottage was before.  It looks like the kitchen is twice as big without it... And...I can actually get around this cottage to clean the counter.

Now if I could just get Tessie to go somewhere that is not here, I would be happy.

She is doing her "director of  operations" thing. Clean the kitchen.  Wash the dishes.  Make me some cookies!....

Maybe I will go finish cleaning the work room.  Nope.  I'm not that desperate yet.  Not quite.

I think that I will bake some chocolate chip cookies and toss a plate of them into the workroom... She will follow them in and I can slam the door and lock it!  Where's my cookie recipe? That should work...

See you tomorrow.

Sew Ready!

Tessie caught me moving things around this morning and demanded that I give her cottage back to her!

I pulled the cottage, turned hat shop, down from the top of the bookcase so that I could put Cordelia's house up there.

I want to get the Forest Fantasy Cottage off of the kitchen counter.  It is somewhat in the way and hard to clean around, besides.

I took all of the furnishings out of the hat shop and out of Cordelia's house. 

My timing was not good... In fact it was down right bad!

Tessie came in and caught me in the middle and demanded that I give her cottage back. 

She explained, "Since you aren't going to use all of the furniture that was in Cordelia's house, I won't have a place to sew anymore.  So I think that it's only fair that you provide me with a sewing cottage.  You have everything here to do it. Get going... NOW!"

I decided that it was easier to put the furniture that she requested into the cottage and let her have at it.

The bottom floor is very similar to the way she had it set up before...

I saw it coming... She kept all of Cordelia's sewing things and moved them in with her own...

Cordelia won't care.  She hates to sew anyway.

In the process, we found two cats and her favorite alligator.  That made her happy.

Now all I have to do is chase the gator down.  He took off as soon as we got him down from the top shelf... I think that he needed a run and some food.  I moved the cats out of his way!

I am off now to clear the table where Cordelia's house was.  Then Walter will help me move the cottage to that table... Thus clearing the counter.

It's going to be a good day!

See you Tomorrow.

Chateau du Chapeaux.....

"No, Tessie. In the first place, it's a cottage, not a castle. And besides, if you name it that, people will think that the whole thing is made out of hats....It's not going to work.". That was me trying to talk Tessie out of the fancy name that she thought up for the new millinery shop.

We were in a discussion whilst sorting through hat stands and hats for the shop.

I was waiting for the finish to dry on the second set of shelves so I dragged out the hat box. That is, the box with hats and hatstands inside.

I found that I had quite a few partially finished hatstands all ready to go.

As you can see, the stands can be make out of something as simple as a bead, a piece of a dowel and a flat wheel shaped bead for the base. Sometimes I get a bit fancier and use a wood turning for the stem. The beads that I am using for a base are some that I bought a long, long time ago from a mini shop that is no longer in business here in Tucson. I believe that they are rosewood. I am not sure what they were originally for, but the shopkeeper sold them to me for next to nothing because she couldn't see any mini application for them.

Tomorrow I will get to work and show you how I decorate them. Yes. They get decorated as well as the hats.

Now about some of the hats. Tessie told me to show you these. She likes straw hats best. You can make straw like hats from anything straw like. The one that she has in her hand is a piece of hardanger cloth, #22. The beige one with the crimson trim and the cream colored one with the peach trim are both straw hat making braid. The ones with blue trim and yellow/green trim are also #22 hardanger, just a different color. The one at the bottom center is stiffened linen. I saved the best for last...It is a piece of a Japanese, fine woven place mat. I told you it could be anything straw like....

This last photo is a little of everything else. The ones that look like velvet are made of velvet florist's ribbon. The peach and turquoise ones are made of silk over card. The red one to the far right is plain old cotton quilter's fabric.

Tessie also found a stash of purses, shoes and other ladies' things....When she dug out the corset, she immediately started making fun of anybody that would wear such a thing. She took one look and announced, "Keep that thing away from me. I will not wear a self inflicted torture device!" I guess that I will sell them in the shop, under duress, but I will not model them. The same goes for the silly high buttoned shoes! A person could kill themselves, trying to walk in something like that!"

I told her that I felt the same way and I wouldn't fight her on this one. I think that she was a bit disappointed. No fight. No fun at all.

She did find one of the mini sacks that I used when I did my last show table. The side of the sack says "Petite Bijoux". It translates "Small Jewels" on Babel Fish. I later found out that this is the French Canadian way of spelling it. They informed me that it should have been "Petit Bijoux". I have also heard that it translates "Small Treasures". I guess that the phrase and the translation are both up for debate. Oh well.....

Anyway, Tessie confiscated all of the left over bags and declared that the cottage would henceforth be known as "Petite Bijoux". Then she finished with, "Now I won't have to make or buy new bags for the shop.".....Good thinking, Tessie.

See you tomorrow.

Never Give a Witch a Sewing Room.....

No more yellow dress. There it is piled in the corner in pieces. After she stopped complaining long enough to think about it yesterday, Tessie disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

I figured it would be best to let her stew for a while. By the time I finally went looking for her, she had fixed things......She was in the sewing room in a new outfit and working on a couple of others.

When I went in, she announced that the yellow dress would make good, soft cleaning rags. I won't repeat some of the words that she used to describe the original dress.

While I was standing there in astonishment, she started tossing things out of the sewing room once again. She frowned at me and said, "It's too dark in here. How am I supposed to sew in the dark?" Then she tossed more on the pile on the counter.

Zar came along about then. Big mistake on his part. She ripped the curtains off of the windows and handed him a paintbrush and a bucket of Dolphin Gray Ceramcoat. She hissed at him through her teeth, "If you value your life, you will start painting now." Then very sweetly she followed that with,"Pretty please?"

He was so confused that he just shook his head and started painting.

Tessie picked the Dolphin gray because we had a lot of it left over from the mistake on the outside of the townhouse. It was too blue. I am not sure why it is no longer "too blue" for her taste, but it can't be all bad. I get to use up the paint that I have instead of running out and trying to decide on another color. Actually, it kind of goes with the ironing board cover.

I am sure that she will try to change her mind again if I don't do something quickly. I have a couple of pieces of fabric that will go perfectly with the color. As soon as I finish here, I am going to make curtains. Quickly!


When last seen, the two of them had cleared out the bottom floor, in preparation for turning that part into Tessie's shop for ladies.

They were starting to tear out the existing curtains. Green print with electric toasters will never do for the shop.

It's my job to now go and clean up the mess that they scattered all over the kitchen. Some of the stuff that they eliminated will go back in the shop and some will go in the townhouse, so all is not lost.

I have my work cut out for me.....How do I get into these messes? Oh! I remember, I gave a witch a sewing room.....Never, ever do that if you want to stay sane.

See you tomorrow.

Ironing Out the Kinks....

I sat myself down and designed an ironing board for Tessie yesterday afternoon. Here it is with measurements.

I cut the legs and the stops for holding them from 3/16 X1/8" stock. They are 3 1/4" long.

The top of the board was cut from 1/8" stock.

I cut the cross pieces for the legs as I went along as they had to fit exactly between the two different widths of the legs.

I added the cross pieces to the legs and then put them together with a couple of jeweler's headpins, bending the open end and clipping it short. You can see the bent end on the side of the crossed legs if you look closely.

I fastened the legs to the top by building a box shape at the back and running a headpin through that. I started with small tabs, but they broke off, so I switched horses in the middle of the stream, so to speak.

After I got the whole thing put together, I cut a piece of felt the exact size of the board and glued it on top. Then I cut a piece of fabric a bit larger than the top of the board, ran glue around the edge and then gathered the whole thing to fit over the board. I ran the thread back and forth across the back to keep the cover in place.

I am not sure if this is the cover that Tessie is going to want to use, so it is only temporary. Not very pretty, but it works for demo purposes.

As soon as it was finished, it disappeared into the new sewing loft.

Please notice that I found another dress form that stands up straight. Now all we need is an iron....Not today.

"Tessie! Get that tiger off of the ironing board right this minute!"

See you tomorrow.

If You Want It,You Build It....

I have to stop sorting the workroom. I keep finding things that Tessie wants. This morning I was straightening the drawers that have furniture and furniture kits in them.

Tessie was perched on top, watching closely. When I came to the Chrysenbon kits, she spotted the sewing machine kit. I might have known that it would cause trouble.

A few months ago, Tessie got into Cordelia's house and found her sewing loft. She spent a couple of days hanging out and making things. I don't remember where Cordelia was at the time, but I know that she wasn't home to protect her things.

Tessie fell in love with the sewing loft. This morning when she saw the sewing machine kit she immediately got that old gleam in her eyes and started with the "I wants" once again. "You've been holding out on me again! I need a sewing machine. I can turn my old cottage into a place to sew and make hats....Millinery, that's the word I am looking for!"

This time I stood firm and told her that, if she wanted the sewing machine and the rest of the stuff that goes with it, she would have to do it herself. I was busy.

I am amazed! She actually read the directions and started building. She did ask a couple of questions here and there, but did quite well by herself. It took her several hours and a lot of nail polish remover to un-stick her fingers, but she got it done.

I advised her to paint the pieces before breaking them apart. The follow the directions carefully.

She is getting pretty good at this stuff.....OK....I did help her some.

And I did have to un-stick my fingers a few times too. I hate super glue that isn't a gel, but that is all I could find.

She wasn't too happy with me. I dropped the dress form and stepped on it....Just a little. I did bend the base and I may have to make a new one. I seem to remember an extra kit for a dress form stashed somewhere...Hmmmm.....More sorting...

I heard noises coming from the living room, where her cottage is right now. Clunk, crash and thud.

When I went in there, she had tossed all of her bedroom furniture out on the table where the house is located. What a mess!

In it's place, she has started making a sewing room. Table for cutting, check. Sewing machine, check. Chair for sewing, check. Trunk full of fabric, check. Sewing box, check. Crooked dress form, check.

Getting this far, she turned to me and said....Wait for it....."I don't like the color and I hate the curtains." And then.....She included me, "WE need to repaint it and make new curtains."

I looked at her and burst out laughing. "Tessie, I am not going to stop sorting in the workroom. If you want it painted, get Zar to help. Then if you still want new curtains, get to work! Remember the new sewing machine?"

"But Casey, I don't have an ironing board or iron and everyone knows that you have to press the seams as you go. I need an ironing board! I need it now!"

Anybody want to know how to build an ironing board? Stay tuned. I may be building one tomorrow.....She won't need it until she coerces Zar into painting the walls.

See you then.