This is not Annabelle

 

This is not Anabelle. She's not Alice either, although I'm thinking of naming her that. Remember the song from 1977? Smokie crooning '24 years living next dooooor to Alice...' ha ha, I might have just given you an earworm.

The naked lady in the box is a 1/12th scale crash-test dummy of the dollhouse world. I use her whenever I need to check the scale of a project. Here, she is a placeholder for Annabelle who hasn't been created yet.

Who is Annabelle? Tasha Tudor introduced us to this sweet doll in a book she wrote in 1954. The purpose of A is for Annabelle was to teach Tasha's granddaughters the alphabet by naming Annabelle's clothing and accessories from A to Z. 

I fell in love with the beautiful illustrations the first time I set eyes on this vintage book and for the longest time, I have yearned to create my own Annabelle with all her pretty things. She has a Locket, a Posy, an Umbrella, and twentythree other beautiful things. Earlier this year, I mentioned the idea in Sandra's group for mignonette dolls and it caught fire. Soon, everyone was scouring the internet for their own copy of the book (it is in reprint and very affordable if you want your own). Now that I have some buddies who are doing it too, I've started putting ideas together. 

Everyone will be doing their own thing, at their own pace. I will show you what I'm making here. So if you would like to do it too, just go ahead! You will need the book, a suitable doll, and a box to put her in. The scale is up to you. Then you just follow the alphabet from A to Z and add items to the box. You can make them or buy them.

Next week I will show you how I made my box. Here's a teaser:

In other news, the patient is much better, although he is already becoming very bored with bed rest. Thank heavens for Youtube videos and Mr Musk launching rockets to Mars and the moon. And when there are no rockets left to launch, there is always Tesla. Things that go bang and things with wheels, what is it with men?

Here's my thought for the week:

 

I asked myself why I'm starting yet another project when I already have so many things on the go. Then I read Northdixie's Blog. A creative project consisting of many bite-sized parts suddenly made perfect sense. I think most of us feel overwhelmed by the state of the world. Setting micro-goals can help you to to feel grounded and give you a sense of achievement. Dixie creates the poignant image of making a bouquet by picking one flower at a time.

My wish for you is that your week will become a bouquet of beautiful flowers.

 

Slow and Steady

 

A tall stack of crochet squares. At this rate, I will have a blanket before winter sets in. This project is exactly what I needed during a weird week.

In a non-pandemic world, Henning would have stayed in hospital for three days but things being as they are, I brought him home ninety minutes after he woke up from a four-hour anaesthesia. Our compassionate surgeon prescribed morphine and oh boy, did the patient need it! A bone graft is the kind of torturous operation that should only be performed in the seventh circle of hell.

In a bizarre twist, the drug that makes you drowsy had the opposite effect on Henning. Although it definitely made him forget the pain, he was awake for 48 hours straight and was babbling an endless stream of uproarious blather. For a man whose daily quota of words usually runs out by 9am, this is quite a record. I'm exhausted.

Now we face two weeks of recovery, followed by six weeks of rehab. I think life will slowly start returning to normal. This coming week, I hope to have snatches of time to  get back to work on miniatures and teddy bears. In my next post, I should have something to show.

Wishing you a sunny, creative week.

P.S. Are any of you who use Blogger researching alternatives to Feedburner?

Not My Cup of Tea

 

This is a blanket I made ten years ago, when I first learned to crochet. It was a block-a-week series that you could subscribe to via the stationery shop. 

Of course, like many subscription traps, when you add up the total cost, you could have bought yarn for several blankets by the time you paid for all 100 issues. But for once I feel that it was good value for money. If you followed the lessons every week you received a very thorough instruction in the art of crochet and they were generous with the yarn. So generous that I started a second blanket with the leftovers.

 

This is where I am. There won't be enough yarn to complete the blanket so I'm adding colours from the project I frogged a few weeks ago. It's the ideal activity to keep my hands busy while other things are happening.

 

Henning's next (and hopefully final) surgery is scheduled for this coming Thursday. It involves a bone transplant so I think it will be quite uncomfortable. There are still many squares needed to complete this throw so he can rest and take his time with recovery once he is home.

In other news, there's a kettle ghost loose in my kitchen. First, my trusty blue enamel kettle was posessed and it started switching off as soon as the water was lukewarm. Once off, nothing could convince it to turn on again for an hour, by which time I had forgotten that I wanted a cup of tea. After several days of this, I admitted defeat and swapped the kettle for an old stainless steel one from the junk room. 

 

Unfortunately, it had a plastic spout and it was immediately apparent why it had been banished. It was leaking quite badly from the seam. In an attempt to salvage the kettle and stop scalding water from running down my arm every time I tilted it, I disassembled the kettle and fetched the superglue. In short order I managed to glue two fingers to the kettle and the kettle to the table but no way would the spout stick to the kettle. Into the dustbin with a clang.

Next, I unearthed an old plastic kettle that I used in the studio in the past when I needed hot water for mixing art materials. This one boils the water, but it makes tea that taste of plastic. Like a shark can smell blood, I can detect foreign substances in my tea when it's one part per billion. I'll admit that I'm a bit fussy.

I've done an online search and saw a ghost-proof kettle that I like. Now all I need is to find a shop that has it in stock.