On New Year's Eve my husband and I made a foray into Portland to visit Powell's Books. I, of course, immediately found the shelf with books about miniatures and doll houses. I found a copy of this book by Jane Harrop, published in the UK in 2011.

Each chapter covers a different room and provides some background on Edwardian times, beliefs of the day and discusses objects commonly found in the Edwardian home.

The best part is the clear step-by-step instructions for building furniture and making accessories typical of the Edwardian era. I appreciate that the author uses supplies that are easy to find and not terribly expensive.

Also helpful are the sections at the back of the book that include a glossary, templates for each of the woodworking projects with dimensions in both inches and metric, as well as a list of sources for both the UK and the US.

I'm looking forward to making many of the projects in this book. You can find a complete description of this book on Amazon.

Those of you who know me know that I have a serious love of books in real life. Hubby and I are "Friends of the Library" in more ways than one. We probably have what most would think are too many books, but we love them.

One of the blogs I follow, Otterine.com blog, recently made a post about these books she made for a bookcase for a project she's working on. I am in l-o-v-e with these books and absolutely inspired.

Future project: a house that represents my family... with each person having their own room filled with the things that are unique to them. I've already started compiling a list for each family member. Not surprisingly, books--copious amounts of books--show up on more than one of those lists...

For inspiration, be sure to check out Otterine's blog, as well as her Etsy shop...

Almost turkey day here in the US! Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Good Saturday morning! I've been a bit indulgent this morning... allowing my sweet hubby to make breakfast for me... Then finishing reading Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes (and dreaming of making some of the Tuscan winter foods she includes recipes for).

I felt like staying cozy in bed for a bit longer so I started reading Ian McEwan's Atonement. Interestingly, in the first chapter, there is a miniatures motif. Early on in the chapter as she is being introduced, McEwan writes:

"...Briony's [room] was the only tidy upstairs room in the house. Her straight-backed dolls in their many-roomed mansion appeared to be under strict instructions not to touch the walls; the various thumb-sized figures to be found standing about her dressing table--cowboys, deep-sea divers, humanoid mice--suggested by their even ranks and spacing a citizen's army awaiting orders.

"A taste for the miniature was one aspect of an orderly spirit."

Briony, in this first chapter is also revealed to be a writer:

"...writing stories not only involved secrecy, it also gave her all the pleasures of miniaturization. A world could be made in five pages, and one that was more pleasing than a model farm."

I read just a bit past this before I had to pull myself together and get on with my day. We shall see if the miniatures motif persists throughout the book. Onto other things... Today, I thought I'd share Abigail's new jammies and robe that I made for her recently.

Here she is all bundled up in her robe. She is laying on a quilt that I made from scraps in my stash, some of which are leftovers from a quilt my mom made a long time ago. I also knitted the pink blanket next to her.

And with her robe open you can see her white flannel jammies, trimmed with the same lace on her robe. You can also see her booties that I crocheted with pearl cotton left over from a long ago attempt to learn Hardanger and tied with scraps of silk ribbon.

I still need to recreate her roombox in wood and am revising the plans for that. Maybe that will be my Thanksgiving weekend project.

A couple of mini-related items popped up in my news feed over the past couple of days...

From the Chattanooga Times Free Press:
"Fairy gardens bring whimsy, imagination to landscape"
Fun!

From Ohio's Dayton Daily News:
"46 literary clues live in a storybook dollhouse"
I would love to see pictures of this and try to identify all of the clues to the books!