Annies Crazy World

 
 
 
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    This is Annie Whitsed's Crazy World a world where I stitch the joys and chaos of life into beautifull crazy quilts. email annie@loopylace.com
March 2024
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Tiny Christmas Stockings December 15th, 2007

A Tiny Stocking for Jessie

In 1995 I made tiny Christmas Stockings for my kids, neices and nephew. I blogged my Son’s tiny Stocking last year and tonight I found my daughters.

In Subsequent Years December 14th, 2007

I put the Miniature Nativity Scene on a miniature table and put it together with the miniature Christmas Tree on a display stand that I made when I was a member of the Brisbane Miniature Enthusiasts in the early 1990’s and in subsequent years I have added miniature bits as I have found them…With the extrabits, the dolls surrounded by toys and bits of wrapping paper I have created a Christmas Morning Diorama.

Miniature Christmas Morning Diorama

Miniature Nativity Scene December 13th, 2007

matchbox cave for miniature nativityA couple of years after we decorated our Miniature Christmmas Tree I found a christmas tree decoration which was a string of tiny charms of Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus…Just the perfect size to make a miniature nativity scene.

To form the base of a stable I used 2 matchbox trays with one side of each broken out and overlapped and the end flaps folded out to widen the floor area. I covered the base with grey paper and made a tree from a twig and scrunched up tissue paper.

The angel was an earing, the camel, donkey and cow (which I painted) where on the glass rim of cocktails in the 1970’s.

The pig was in a bag of second hand toys that I got in the early 1980’s, he must have been a part of an old farm yard set, he must have had a hard life because he had lost half his paint and was missing 3 legs (replaced with match stick legs), I kept him all these years because there was something appealing in his character and he found a lovely home here.

The sheep is a felted lump of fleece and for the shepard I redressed a guacamole worry dolls.

A sattering of straw completes the scene.

Miniature Nativity Scene

My (Miniature) Christmas Tree December 11th, 2007

Miniature Decorated christmas Tree

About 6 years ago when I left it to late to buy a Christmas Tree and the real trees were sold out…I don’t like artificial trees and would rather use the branch of a tree which I have done before but when we got home I showed my son a 6 inch high miniature tree that I had and we decided to decorate it for our Christmas tree.

As well as the miniature tree I had a length of miniature gold tinsel other than that it is very much a crazy quilt tree as the red tinsel is a piece of chenille thread and the decorations including the star on the top are beads and charms from my stash.

It took us 3 times as long than a full sized tree takes to decorate but we had a lovely creative evening together…

Miniature Thongs – Detail 416 November 7th, 2007

Miniature Thongs BroochI made this miniature quilt (1.5 x 1.8 inches) for my son in 2002 when he was traveling overseas and I wanted to make him something, small enough to carry easily, that would remind him of home.

I didn’t get a good photo of it at the time, so when I was visiting him and noticed that he still has it on display in his room, I took the opportunity to take a photo…It also inspired me to pull out the holiday buzy box and make thong brooches (see holiday snaps day 11), as memories of Magnetic Island for some people that I met up there.

Actual size of thongs for Sam

Holiday Snaps Day 11

Holiday Snaps Day 11 October 12th, 2007

running repairI decided to stitch some miniature thongs for the English backpackers and Sam’s flat mate K…Having decided that I would like to stitch the miniature thongs I went looking for something to stitch the thongs onto, I found in my buzy box a business card sized piece of tymtax (sp?? thick, stiff interfacing), I cut it into 3 pieces and stitched safty pins onto the back, I originally intended to do just the thongs but the white background looked boring so K painted the backgrounds while I cut the rubber from the side of a thong…

While the PVA Glue that I used to seal the colour was drying we went to the beach…I took needle and thread to the beach to do a running repair on the pocket of Sam’s work apron so that he could wear it to work this afternoon…

While at the beach we collected a few tiny shells and a pinch of sand to use on the Thong Brooches… and together with a few stitches of green thread to make the seaweed 3 dimensional they formed a perfect little background for the thongs…I photographed them on the thong that I cut the rubber from.

Thong Broochs

View from Magnetic Island Forts

Corner of Magnetic Island FortThis afternoon while Sam and K where at work I went on a 2 hour walk, with the English girls, up the hill to the old Forts, the photo above is the view from one of the forts with the other fort on the left…the photo on the right is a detail of the corner of one of the forts…

It had been a long but very relaxed day and we finished it with a friendly game of pool.

Playing Pool

Surfs up – details 323 and 324 July 9th, 2007

Miniature surf board in place

The Surf board is finished, I won’t know, till I can ring my brother again tomorrow, just how close I got to the original…I didn’t think that I was going to be able to do the writing across the middle, I had tried, messed up and had to sand it off and repaint it several times and was ready to give up until a friend lent me a finer pen and suddlenly I was able to fit the words The Menace into the space, it is not real clear but it can be read and I think my brother will be delighted with it.

back of miniature transistor radio

I have also added a Miniature Transistor Radio in the corner of my daughters photo…Mum didn’t like the radio or any noise makers which is a family story in itself, her grand daughter on the other hand can’t live without music.

miniature transistor radio in place

I made the radio several years back for another project and then didn’t use it…I used a cube of black rubber for the radio shape which I covered with a piece of soft leather cut the same shape as the real thing would be…the dial is a sequin held on by a pin cut off to the thickness of the radio…The antenna is a small nail.

and After talking to mum I have added a French Stamp to complete the ancestry.

French stamp

mess ups add reality July 8th, 2007

I am still waiting on one photo which is having email technical difficulties…In the meantime I am making bits that I know I want to finish the last couple of blocks.

Miniature surf board paintedI used purple nail polish to paint the surfboard, I had all sorts of difficulties with the nail polish not going on smoothly, I think mostly impatience not waiting for the first coat to dry properly, and then putting it to close to the heater which caused bubbles to form…However both these problems will add to the finished surfboard, as the lumpy bits look somewhat like a build up of wax and I will sprinkle a little sand over the bubbles when I do the clear top coat (which I am resisting doing until tomorrow when the nailpolish has had the 24 hours it needs to cure properly)….I have often found that mistakes/mess ups can actually add a lot of reality and character miniatures.

back of miniature curtin

I have also made a curtin, I have photographed the back which shows how I made gathering tape from 7 mm silk ribbon and black thread…I also used silk ribbon to face the bottom because I didn’t allow enough for a proper hem when I measured the fabric.

Bead Street July 6th, 2007

Chickens, camera and computer charmsI am looking for a few charms so on the way home from picking my neice up from school today we called into Bead Street…Dealing mostly in beads they don’t have many charms and didn’t have any that I had on my list but I did find some cute Chickens and cool little camera and a computer that I think will go on mum’s quilt…

And somehow several other charms, some beads and a role of maroon beading wire seemed to find there way into my bag.

beads and charms I bought today

making a miniature surfboard step 1They did have a surf board which was on my list but it was bigger than I wanted…when I got home and thought about it, I decided that I could make one myself…I found an image of a surfboard, drew the shape onto an icypole stick and used a craft knife to cut the rough shape and then used an emery board to file it to shape…before painting it I will ring my brother tomorrow and ask him what colour and design I should paint it.

making a miniature surfboard step 2

Just Perfect – Additions to Detail 266 and Details 308 to 310 June 27th, 2007

Join 18Another pair of blocks joined.

The Stitches down this join are Loop Stitch,

Loop Stitch

Cretan Stitch,

Cretan Stitch

The third stitch is Portugese Stem Stitch done with a tubular nylon floss and misstitched in that I didn’t do the wraps aroung the right part of the stitch…misstitching is an easy way to discover new stitch variations.

Portuguese Stem Stitch

Next…When I did the Fish for Dinner Scene I was asked if I was going to put a frying pan on it, too? my answer at the time was Yes….No…Maybe…When I join the blocks there is room for one on the left hand side…I do Have one in my dolls house…but the one I have is plastic and the handle would be at risk of breaking so there may be technical problems in attaching it.

Today when looking through some boxes I found a miniature copper frying pan…pity the handle had been broken off

miniature frying pan with broken handle

Could I add a handle…wire is the only thing that I could think of that would be strong enough…I drilled a couple of extra holes in the pan and used a stiff wire to form the base of the handle

miniature frying pan mend step one

I then used a fine beading wire build up the structure of the handle.

miniature frying pan mend step two

At this stage I was thinking that I would wrap the handle with thread held in place with PVA White wood Glue but before doing that I did a mental wish list of what would work well if only I had the materials/skillsm some sort of resin to mould the handle is what came to mind and then I remembered that I had just what I needed….I used My Acrylic fingernail resin to mould a handle around the wire.

miniature frying pan mend step three

Then it was just a matter of painting the frying pan, The bottom of the pan won’t even be seen once I sew it on but I still felt compelled to paint it.

miniature frying pan painted bottom

And the top of the Frying Pan, photographed with a coin to show the size.

miniature frying pan painted top

At the bottom of the same Fish for Dinner Post I commented that I would have to go shopping to try and find a lemon button…The next Day Kathy M contacted me and said that she had some lemon beads that she would love to send me…They arrived today together with some adorable kangaroo buttons.

lemon beads

…I hadn’t dared hope that they would actually be exactly what I wanted…I did a happy dance when I opened the package to find that they are just that the exact size perfect little lemons for my scene…

…And the little lemon is even more perfect because most of our lemons came from the neighbours tree and now the lemon for my quilt has come from a cyber Neighbour…Just Perfect.

Detail 266 with additions