Dancing Dragon Inn - Week 19

  

Firstly, I'd like to welcome the four newest followers to the blog. They are Drora Hed and Eli en Karina, neither of whom appear to have blogs of their own and Susi of Mini Eden and Glenda of Peppercorn Miniatures. Thank you all for choosing to follow my blog and extra thanks to Glenda for her excellent instructions in last April's Dolls House and Miniature Scene, they came in very handy!

After making a start on populating the Inn last week I made a big push this week to get as many people as I could finished. I now have thirteen people dressed, wigged and more or less finished. Some of the dolls vaguely have a tudor look about their clothes, but "vaguely" is as close as they come to any type of authenticity, it is after all a fantasy Inn. In the building and decoration of the Inn, the fantasy aspect wasn't very strong, I was planning to step it up with the people and accessories. So far, this plan has had only minimal success as most of the people are clothed very mundanely. The exceptions are the wizard and his wife for the tavern and the oriental traveller for . . . somewhere in the Inn. The oriental fellow is very striking in vivid red and brocade and is definately not a lowly peasant. Perhaps he should be staying in the high, ie most lavishly expensive, bedroom? As for the wizard and witch, they are very pink-and-purple and decidely not quite right. They either need stripping and re-dressing or perhaps just sitting in the back corner of the tavern where they won't be so noticable. There are still more people needed for the Inn - about eight more. The extra dolls I need arrived in the mail this morning, so I can make a start on the remaining dolls anytime, though after one mamoth sewing effort I may wait until next week to start on them.

Being rather tired of working with fabrics, I sepnt Sunday afternoon working with something completely different - polymer clay. I made some basic door handles, a half dozen ale mugs, some stew, a mass of small pies, one large pie, pieces of bread and a loaf of bread, some jugs and a jug and basin for the washstand in the top floor bedroom. Needless to say, now I'm a bit fed up of clay too. I was going to make some fish for the stream too, but discovered fish are harder to make than you'd expect. I guess my fishing urchin is going to have to go hungry because there are still no fish for the stream. That's okay, I haven't made him a fishing line yet anyway.

The list of major tasks still needing completion is shrinking. It's down to fitting out the downstairs shop, making a stall for the market space and dressing about eight more people. The rest of the "to do" list is small fiddly bits and pieces like making fish and a fishing pole, trying the curtain over the tavern window back, making beer/ale, etc. Hey, maybe I can be finished by the end of January after all?
 

And don't forget to enter my giveaway - Entries close on 31st January.