Montreal Show 2018

The first show of the season for me is always Montreal and as usual the Miniature Enthusiasts of Montreal put on a good show. This year the weather was good and the show was busy both days.
They seem to be a very active club and their display of club workshops and individual projects is always inspiring.

I have to confess it is a also fun to pick out some of the Petworth kits that show up here and there.




This year Lise A. not only had her Muskoka cottage on display but she scratch built a 1/12 version of the cottage and the 2 cottages side by side had me doing a bit of a double take. What a fun idea!





Michele C had the Muskoka Boathouse and I know she was busy finishing it at the last minute. I can relate to that. My first show I was varnishing the room box in the hotel room the night before the show. Michele did a lovely job as always and she also does incredible 1/4 scale needlework.




 I managed to get over to her table early so my Hungerford Manor will now have beautiful new needlepoint carpet

Bev L. displayed her Canadian Artisans collectibles room box . Such a great idea. It has a list of all the artisans printed on the cornice and it was fun to match up names and items. Often the names brought back memories of old friends and a couple of the paintings on the back wall had me thinking 'Oh! those are mine." It is so long since I did miniature painting that I'd nearly forgotten about them.




Every show I think I should take a photo
of my table just so I have a record of what it looks like and every show I remember that about 10 minutes after we pack everything away to go home. This year I finally remembered when we first set up.  It is a pretty basic set up but I do love my briefcase with the LED lighting and all the samples of the furniture kits. The only downside is I have run out of room.
  I have plans for a new series of Art Nouveau furniture so something will have to go.







One of the pleasures of doing a show is having a chance to catch up with friends. Janice Crawley from Winnipeg, who does such beautiful porcelain tea sets and character teapots, had the table next to me and also drove down to Montreal with us so we had a chance to visit. Karl Blindheim (Bjarnesonn's) had the table on the other side with his great dogs and I could watch him work on his new line of reptiles. The frog really appealed to me. I may have to add him to my collection.

A show is always has bit of an 'old home week' where we get a chance to catch up with friends on either side of the sales tables. Some you only see once a year at that particular show but year after year they become friends. That is one of the best things about miniatures.
 Once the show is over we all go our separate ways but I will see Janice in Kensington in May and Karl in Chicago.


For a small show, Montreal has some marvelous artisans  and Keenderson, Miniatures in Silver and Bjarnesonn's will all be in Chicago later this month for the Tom Bishop show. I will have a table there too and I'm really excited about going. This will be the first time I get to the Chicago show so it will be really hard to stay at my table and not run around the show buying treasures for my own collection. Some how I will manage a bit of shopping I'm sure.  I'm in the Rose Salon  -Table 11.

Stop by and say Hello if you get to the show.




This spring is really busy with shows and the Ontario Gathering so the 1/2 scale Tudor Inn will have to wait until June for any new work. Here is what is looks like so far.

There are a couple of new kits coming out for the Chicago show and for Kensington. They will be up on my website in June when I get back from Sturbridge.  I hope we see you at one of the shows.
Cheers
 Gayle

www.petworthminiatures.com

The Half Scale house is coming along nicely. It has been very much a 'cut , try- re-cut and fit' sort of  construction which is not the way I usually work but as this is a one of a kind it seems to be working.
Some of the rooms have to be finished as I go simply because it is easier to get into them before the next floor is installed. Very much a 'what comes first- the chicken or the the egg'  way of working. Electrical, wallpaper and flooring and trim are all decisions that I would prefer to wait and enjoy later but it is so much easier to get inside and install them now that I am having to finish rooms as I go.

 

This  is the Pub room before the side wall is glued in place.

Here is the same room from the final view with the left side wall now installed. The front walls will slide in place behind the butresses.(shown on the left) 

The lighting is installed in the Great Hall but I'm not sure where the batteries will be hidden yet.

 I have a couple of rooms done, some of the outside walls detailed and some parts that aren't even designed yet. It is very much a patchwork but from some angles it looks lovely.If I crop the photos it looks as if I am really getting things done.

                                             A longer view shows up all the missing bits.

Half Scale Inn
 And now for something completely different......
         I don't usually work in half scale but I do offer some of my kits in that scale. Of course that means I have to make a sample to make sure the kit works. So now I have several half scale pieces of furniture and really  no place to put them. You can see where this is going.
          Several years ago Ian Jopson in the UK very kindly sent me the vintage plans for a half scale coaching inn.  The plans were very fragile as they came out of a 1938 copy of Hobbies magazine but I love Tudor and the building was such an interesting design that I really wanted to make one.
In 2016, we stayed in The George Inn in Norton St Philips, just down the road from the Hungerford- Farleigh Castle. I just fell in love with this building and it is so much like the miniature that  I want to use some of the details from the actual inn in my half scale one.  But mine is going to be a private residence. Not so many zoning bylaws to follow that way.

 This has been on my 'to do' list, at the very bottom, for some time now and this winter seemed like the perfect time to start it.
 After all I only have Bishop's Chicago show, Kensington, Sturbridge, the Ontario Gathering and the Montreal show to get ready for in the next 2 months.
I convinced myself that this would be my  recreation and escape from 'work'. LOL


         The first hurdle was figuring out the plans. The paper was not only fragile but I think they made the pattern confusing just so you would give up and order the nice pre-cut kit that they advertised. As this was in 1938, I doubt the kit is still available but Always Hobbies web site does have reprinted copies of the plans listed .
There were few actual measurements and only a rough suggestion of where each wall should go. The inn was not really meant to be a dollhouse either but a enclosed structure so no second story floors or ways to open the building were shown and the instructions just basically said; "cut the roof parts to fit the gables"  I do love a challenge.

I think I have cut each wall at least twice as I try to figure out what will work. I'll worry about the roof later. Then there is the hinges or no hinges decision for closing it in. The original plans had solid fixed walls everywhere. And then wiring. I confess I love the look of lights but I am so impatient get the interiors finished that I hate to wait while I route wiring so it is often not as well planned as it could be. We'll have to see how that goes.

The measurements that are given are a bit off for half scale so I used them as merely suggestions. As it is the rooms will be quite small. I did add two additions to the back to give more room for furniture. After all that was my excuse for making this in the first place; a display for the half scale furniture kits.

 I love the way the windows have turned out and the floors are quite nice. I have to recut a couple of walls as I keep changing the design as it goes along but the basic floor plan is set and the floors have been stained and varnished.

Here is the basic shell with the front walls just propped up . It is coming along nicely  and I will post some interior pictures once I get more ready.