Madame Bellerose's & The Bakery - Weeks 13 & 14

Firstly, there was no blog entry last week as my internet connection was jacking around on me. As I have a diploma in Software Admin. I know these things actually have their own conciousness and do these things deliberately to irritate people. . . . Anyway . . . After three weeks, all the residents, guests and workers of the Bakery and MB's are FINALLY FINISHED!!!! Finished that is unless I decide to add more people. There really should be more than one male in MB's house, but I really don't like making anywhere-close-to-modern mens clothing. So basically, I'll wait until everything else is finished and see if the house looks like it need a couple more men about. As usual, all the photos are already on Flickr, just use the link in the sidebar to the left to find them. You'll get a far better idea of what I've done if you look at the pictures than if I rabbit on and on about it here. With the addition of the workers, the Bakery's first stage is now more or less finished. There are a few things to take care of still, such as straightening the chandelier, but they are all very minor and won't change the overall look at all. As such, I won't be adding anymore blog entries for The Bakery until I start on Stage Two sometime after Christmas. I am still hoping to have MB's finished before Christmas. Like the bakery, there are really only small jobs left to be done, but unlike the bakery all those small jobs are fiddly, or require me to make something up as I go, so they may take quite some time to complete. The main thing that needs attention in MB's is the Entrance Hall, which just isn't working and at the moment, I have no idea what to do with it.

Madame Bellerose's & The Bakery - Week Twelve

Another combined post this week due to a minimum of progress on either project. This is due to three main reasons. 1) After months of cool, wet weather Tasmania has suddenly gotten HOT. Okay, hot by Tassie standards, around 30 degees C. This is a problem because no one is aclimatised to the heat yet, so it seems hotter than it actually is and it is staying hot at night so no one is getting any sleep and the combination is making everyone with sense lethargic. And when you try to do anything with glue or paint, it is dry almost as soon as it comes out the container. 2) Christmas is coming. Only another 45 days to go and lots of things that need to be done beforehand. Over the weekend I spent several hours assembling flat-packed furniture for my mother and various other things that she wants done before Christmas. In fact I usually give up even trying to work on any craft projects in December as there is just too many other things to see to. 3) The task I set myself for the week was to dress the people who will populate both projects. For the bakery and the staff of MB's, this is fairly easy and straight-forward. Simple dresses, aprons, leggings and tunics. The guests at the seance are another matter however. The people here are supposed to be dressed 'formal'. For the men this means jackets (which I HATE making). For the time being I am adding one male guest in the clothes he was bought in and if I decide I need more men, I'll worry about that later on. The women I want to dress in the bustle dress style of the 1870-80s. These are much more complicated dresses than any I have tried before (at least without a pattern.) I decided to start with the guest who has fainted at the seance and is lying on the couch/sofa to recover. I only need to worry about the front of her gown and thus I can cheat by not adding a bustle or any complicated details on her rear. I have finished this lady (with the possible exception of a little trim here and there) and I think I now know how best to work on the others - I just have to get brave enough to try! Anyway, here are the photos of what I did get done:

Madame Bellerose's - Week Eleven

In MB's lounge room, the cats are up to mischief . . . . . Since I started this house, I really haven't liked the way it was looking - but suddenly it's all started to come together and is looking GREAT! The seance room, which I really, seriously considered gutting at one point and starting again is now starting to look fabulous. The bedroom is almost finished - just needs a rug or two on the floor. The lounge needs lights and it too will be basically done. The kitchen needs the doorways to the scullery re-doing. They all need some people. The only real problem at the moment is the entry hall. Having two curved staircases might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but now they're in place there is no way to add anything else to the room without it looking crowded or just plain wrong, yet leaving it empty is also a bad look. At the moment I'm thinking of making a big, fancy chandelier to hang in the middle of the room and then putting a ladder beneath it and having someone in the process of cleaning the chandelier. This would fill in the space in an interesting way, but wouldn't really tie up with the goings on in other parts of the house. Like the Bakery, MB's is up to the point where I feel Ican start adding people. Bedroom: At this point probably empty, but perhaps a maid straightening things up Seance: Populated by a few well dressed ladies and gents attending a seance. MB herself will be leading the seance, of course. Lounge: Resting on the couch, one of the ladies from the seance who fainted as a result of the eerie dramas of the seance. Kitchen: A cook is directing the preparations of refreshments for the guests. Under her watchful eye are one or two maids/assistants Hall: Perhaps a servant cleaning something, perhaps someone else, perhaps no one??????

The Bakery - Week Eleven

Is it really eleven weeks since I started The Bakery? Is it really only 49 days until Christmas? . . . Again this week, more work was done to MB's than the Bakery, but the Bakery did gain some vital features. Most important, the lights! Suspended from the Bakery ceiling is a 'chandelier' holding drippy wax candles to 'light' the Bakery. The candles are made of real wax, but the wicks are fake. Contray to my fears, the chandelier is yet to fall down and it has been in place since Sunday, so hopefully that means it isn't going to fall down and whack some poor baker on the head. Now all I have to do is get the thing to hang straight . . . There are also some extra candles scattered about the bakery for extra lighting. The other main advance in the Bakery (if you can call it an advance) was the invasion of the mice. Mice, who tend to resemble some hideously deformed tadpoles, now infest the Sewer section, are hiding behind sacks in the Storage area and a few brave mice have headed into the bakery proper in search of fresh crumbs. Next, I need to dress and wig some dolls to work in the bakery and the basement block sectiion of this project will (baring a few details here and there) be complete. At the moment I'm thinking there'll be the following characers The Master Baker - The guy in charge of it all, probably working at the front table The Pie Maker - Working at the side back table, oddly enough making pies The Stoker - A younger person with the job of tending the oven fire and keeping an eye on the bread so it doesn't burn The Thief/Smuggler - Sorting gems from flour in the Storage area after they have been smuggled into the city in the flour sacks The Thief's Assistant - Waiting in the sewer to carry away the ill gotten gains