First polymer clay miniatures

In case you thought I'd forgotten the Dolls House....

Of course I haven't, just not blogged about it for a while. Exciting post to come about the "fourth wall", and the orangery I'm building, but what I'm really excited about at the moment is building miniature things for it out of polymer clay.  I've bought loads of beautiful things for it from dolls house shops, from the Miniatura exhibition and from eBay, and all have been beautifully handcrafted. So I thought I'd have a go myself.  Bought a few different colours of polymer clay and set to work. Of course, I soon realised it was harder than that, and I needed tools, chalk pastel paints and liquid clay. But, I'm persevering, and these are my first attempts

A bread loaf, two cheese, tomato and cucumber rolls and a red rose in a black vase:

Some lemons, clementines, apples and pumpkins for Halloween

And some sweet things - a strawberry cheesecake, a kiwi tart, a lemon custard tart, and two cupcakes.

Just realised there's nothing on the pictures to give you an idea of scale, but each tarts above is smaller than a penny.  Not brilliant, but not bad for a first attempt! 

Making a ring

A couple of weeks ago, I went with a friend to a jewelery making day  - courtesy of a Groupon offer! We turned up early - 9am is certainly early for me on a Sunday - and met our fellow jewelers, as well as our instructor for the day, who turned out to have worked with one of my neighbours who is a designer and silversmith.

Most of the morning was spent learning about how jewelery is made from scratch, and the difference between hand made and hand finished. We saw how moulds are made, and how the metal is introduced into them, and how things are finished afterwards. It was fascinating.  Then, we had to make our own silver ring, from a strip of silver, carefully cut to match out finger size. This was mine:

Then we had to bend it into a circle using some small pliers to start it off, and then hammering it over a spike of some kind. Forgotten the technical term! Mine didn't look too bad, but I did get some help. then the most exciting bit - I love playing with fire so a bit of silver soldering to seal them was great fun. At the end we had a lovely circular ring

All it needed now was hitting with a big hammer to flatten it off

Then we had to put the facets on and make the ring bigger to fit. This was a real specialist job and involved another hammer. It also involved Andrew starting it off for us, and then us all having a go. It certainly wasn't as easy as he made it look. Every facet had to be same size and even, and you had to hit each one in exactly the same place with the hammer every time. Here's me doing mine.

And here's Andrew correcting all of my mistakes to make it presentable!

After some serious finishing and polishing, I had a great ring at the end of it, and a great day. Would certainly recommend it. They do a lot of different courses, you can see them here.

Chatsworh Country Fair and Sculptures

I've just realised that we've been to Chatsworth 3 times in the last 6 days. I love Chatsworth - we're "gold friends" aka season ticket holders and I go as often as I can. I particularly like that it's still owned by a family - not been given to the National Trust  - and they've worked very hard to make it pay its way. Hit by enormous death duties, which took 17 years to pay off, it's now a thriving business, (actually a charitable trust), and a huge employer in the region.

Last weekend was the Country Fair - an enormous event, and we get tickets for two days as part of our membership, so I get to go twice. Each day opens with an amazing parachute display

There's then a whole programme of entertainment, including falconry displays which I love. One of the birds landed very close to us:

And one very stupid one got stuck on the wrong side of the fence trying to get some food

But one of our favourite things to do is go round the food village. Loads of stalls, each giving away free samples. This year the favourite seemed to be flavoured vodka and liquers. Of course it would have been rude not to try them, and by about 1130 we were all a little tipsy. Soon sobered up by a small shot of naga chillis in vodka. One day I might get the feeling back in my tongue...  Of course there was cheese, bread, cake, chocolate and loads of other things to taste, but we still managed a hot pork sandwich and a pint for lunch!

There's always something a little out of the ordinary, and this year it was the dancing diggers - JCBs to be precise. Strange but true.



However, the stars of the show are always the Red Arrows. Amazing. Could watch them all day.

Then last night we went to the opening evening of Beyond Limits, the annual sculpture exhibition in the grounds. Think its fair to day that some I loved, some I didn't!  All these pictures are of ones I loved, especially the last one.

Definitely worth a visit.

Whitby, the last bit

Thursday morning I went to see John Connolly, a wonderful songwriter, with such classics as Mr Punch and Judy Man and Fiddlers Green. He did a great hour of his own songs which are a mixture of very serious, to very funny. Very enjoyable way to pass the time!


Then met friends for lunch in the Rifle Club where I had a very nice ham and pease pudding sandwich, not something you get every day! An important task then lay ahead, shopping for tea. We bought an assortment of seafood, dressed crab, dressed lobster ( a snip at £4 each!), smoked salmon, prawns, smoked mackerel..... Back to the flat to drop it off and prepare some salads, as well as a bit of what we like to call chef's privilege, aka white wine, and up to the Met to join everyone else for The Sultans of Squeeze - Chris Parkinson


And John Kirkpatrick


Two mighty squeezebox players.
Then back for the famous Whitby Seafood Salad extravaganza, washed down with fizz of course.


The fancy dress ceilidh theme was Harry Potter, and so it was time for some dressing up:


And then a walk through the streets, much to the amusement of the residents.
The ceilidh was great, and there were some studding costumes. The band, 422 came as Slytherins


Martyn Harvey and the band looked pretty good

But the best had to be Earlsden Morris who came as a variety of characters, most of them travelling in the Hogwarts Express!
 There's a video of them arriving here

Friday morning was spent walking round Whitby, and trying to get the death eater tattoo off my arm from the night before. Tried everything but ended up leaving it on.

Went to check on the Penny Hedge which had survived its three tides


And then walked up to the Church and the Abbey where you get some stunning views



And down the 199 steps, then a walk to the kipper smokery


And lunch in the Duke of York.
In the afternoon we walk out along the west pier, and even the donkeys looked tired at the end of folk week


Watched Thrales Rapper do an interesting variant on a tumble, which had Star and Shadow as well as members of the audience running underneath it


And then went to The Elsinore to watch the final parade, complete with piper and the heather covered garland being carried by Goathland Plough Stots



After pie and mash from the pie and mash shop (where else) it was off to the final ceilidh, with some fabulous dancing to Peeping Tom.
The dance spot was Star and Shadow doing a combined clog and rapper routine which began with them dancing with hankies instead of swords!



Eventually the garland was carried in


We all sang Wild Mountain Thyme,


 
got our heather, and that was it for another year.

We saw the only rain of the week on the way home, and got absolutely drenched, but we were happy!


Next morning up too early, out by 10am, and off for coffee in town and a bit of shopping. Saw the Frumptarn Guggenband from Barnsley which was a bit of a surprise. Love their new steampunk outfits!



On the way back did a short detour back to Thornton Le Dale to see the scarecrow festival. This is just a couple




Crooked Billet at Towton for lunch as usual, and home.

What a great week!


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Whitby, the middle section

Tuesday began with a folky version of QI, very funny and a pleasant, easy start to the day. JK look a bit stumped here!



Then I strolled up to the Met to see one of my favourite singers, Steve Tilston, who was not even supposed to be appearing, but standing in for someone else. He was great, as always, and here's a very short clip of him singing  The Fisher Lad of Whitby



I was also lucky to catch The Foxglove Trio who were on before him. One of the good things about Whitby is seeing lots of artists, most of whom you've never heard of before and you get to see some really good ones, Foxglove Trio definitely fell into that category.

There's so much real ale in Whitby, but I've not had any, sticking to lager and cider, whats wrong with me!

Then it was back down to see Family Folk Tunes, a brilliant take off of Family Fortunes, where 100 folkies are asked the questions, and this year we were all included, so knew the questions, and could make some intelligent guesses at the answers. One of the teams were friends from Sheffield, and it was hosted as always by Stanley Accrington



The famous question, what instrument would you throw off a cliff, gets the same top two answers every year....



Tea was fish and chips on the go, as we were dashing up to the Met for a concert, interesting to see a cruise liner off shore, never seen one here before.

Great view of the Church and the Abbey as well

Massive queue for the concert, which was entitled Together in Harmony, and was 6 acts harmony singing with little or no accompaniment. Fab concert, really enjoyed it, and eventually got a seat. Started off with the Wilsons, and then the Young Uns, who were great, amazing voices.


I was also impressed with another young band, Teracups, who did some great mouth music



After that, off to the Spa for the late night extra with 422 and more dancing. A tiring day, but great fun.

Wednesday started with some shopping and making a bolognese for tea, and then off to the Spa for a concert, 422 and friends. You never know who's going to be on, and they always bring lots of Young People, this year being no exception.

Then another quick dash to the storytelling, which was interrupted by the swing bridge being open!



The storyteller was Ursula Holden-Gill, and she was excellent, certainly not a shrinking violet!



Back home for tea, and then we got a taxi, normally we walk everywhere, but we were going to the Rugby Club and its a bit far out. Another great concert, starting with our great friend, Pete Morton



Followed by a stream of great entertainers, including Chris Parkinson, another friend, and Alistair Russell



And finishing off with Dave Burland, a wonderful Yorkshire singer.

After it we walked to the Spa for a special late night event with Sheelanagig, a band plating Balkan, gypsy, folky, sort of music. Very loudly.





Lots of bopping from the audience and some dancing and acrobatics form the band. Excellent, but by about 1am we'd had enough and wended our weary way home!



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