A Bluestocking Knits

While I'm waiting for other things to happen with the carpet shop, I decided to start prepping the other two, using odd moments here and there to sand or patch instead of knitting, or perhaps writing the dozen or so letters I owe.  Anyway, I was tempted to re-title this post "Fits and Starts" — I'm afraid that I'm not as impressed with these two Street of Shops kits as I was with the first one, as they are rather indifferently cut, and in places very sloppily put together.  It's clear, too, that these two either a much-later addition to the line or a different designer altogether, or perhaps both, as they are noticeably less finished-looking.  The fluting on the columns in the two-window shop are narrow and rounded, quite elegant, where these are wide and flat, simply grooves cut into the board, and in some cases not very well.

Pieces that were glued on straight have come loose, while the kit languished in its box, and pieces that were glued poorly, alas, are immovable.

So I have been doing a lot of filling and sanding, which would have annoyed me no end if I had actually shelled out money for this, but it was a hand-me-down — and a generous one, to be sure — so I'm calling it training for future scratch-builds and repairs, and (really) keeping my grumbling to a minimum.

The bay is on so crookedly that I glued a piece of strip wood in the gap to fill it.  The crookedness also means that the pre-cut Plexiglas doesn't fit — luckily, too big, not too small.  You can see from the shadow on the side window's protective cover how bowed it is in order to fit, and the other side is even tighter so I didn't even try, for fear of breaking it.

The inside of this bay window also needed a piece of stripwood to cover up the very large jog between the lower wall and the flat shelf inside the window.  I still have a bit more sanding to do to get it smooth.

We are already calling this "subsidence — from the bombing" in honor of Mrs. Wilberforce at the beginning of "The Ladykillers".  ("It's no use trying.  None of the pictures will hang straight …" she says, regretfully but resigned.)

What on earth –? 

But this will be a charming little shop — the windows are very appealing!  I love the generosity of the corner door.  And as you can see, I've already had a go at the other shop's window lettering — yes, as much as I resisted the cliché of a 1:12 tea room, it did not want to be anything else, so tea room it will be!  I like the font and the arrangement of the lettering, but the results are more than a bit wobbly in person, so I will probably wash it off and try again after a bit more practice.

Or more properly, "Painting and More Sanding".

I decided to use Behr Marquee paint, which a number of experienced members of the Greenleaf community recommend, and got three sample pots, in "Chelsea Green" for the front of the shop, "Radiant Silver" inside, and "Summer Storm" on the "backstage" parts (for all three of the shops).  I definitely wanted green, having seen photos of a 12:1 carpet shop (alas, no longer in business) that charmed me greatly, and for the inside I thought that a good neutral, not too dark but not too light, would look good with all of the differently-colored carpets.

The moisture in the paint raised quite a lot of grain on the wood, requiring more sanding than I expected, especially around edges, and this was a bit of a drag as I don't particularly like sanding — but there it is.  One does what one must.

I confess that I had some grumbles about water-based house paint as I went along.  I grew up with oil-based paints, so despite the environmental and health benefits of water-based — not to mention clean-up, never my favorite part! — the consistency and performance of it always falls somewhat short in my mind.  I wasn't particularly impressed by the results on the MDF walls here, though that certainly may owe much to my brushing technique as well, but more than that, the MDF simply looks almost mirror-smooth, far smoother than plaster walls.  I started looking into alternatives — papering the walls and painting over the paper, just to get some texture? spackling compound? — and decided to try Paperclay, which a number of miniaturists have used with success.

This stuff definitely has a learning curve!  It's pretty basic in theory, but the fine details take a while to accomplish well.  In this sort of application, basically, you roll out a ball of clay, spread some glue thinly on the MDF, lay the "sheet" of Paperclay on top of the glue and smooth it, then either trim it (if on an edge) or feather it (if it will meet up with the next piece of rolled clay), and repeat as necessary.  You smooth the joins as best you can, usually with a bit of water on your fingers, which not only helps the two pieces of rolled clay adhere to each other, but makes it easier to smooth the join.  It is still ridiculously easy to have quite noticeable hills and valleys once you are "finished" smoothing it — and then you let it dry, during which the Paperclay frequently contracts slightly (this is what the glue base is for, to help adhere the clay to the wood and as much as possible keep it from shrinking).  The contracting can also make the Paperclay crack — caveat Paperclay-layer.

Unfortunately, the contraction can also make the base material curve, which it did noticeably with the MDF here.  David guesses that the MDF is more vulnerable to bowing than plywood, which many dollhouses (kits and scratch-built) are made of, and may be why other mini-builders have had good results.  And so my three "plastered" walls have spent quite a lot of time lately under David's lead diving weights and a (very heavy!) four-arm silver candelabra that David put on our wedding registry for a lark.

This will need some patching!

The front of the shop is also clearly bowed a bit, and I'm pretty sure that unlike the Paperclayed walls, this one actually came out of the box that way — I thought it was just my eyes (!), but against a straighter edge, you can tell, right at the door frame in the middle here.

So the Paperclay is a middling success, though surely I must ascribe some of the points-off to my application.  There is certainly quite a knack to getting the stuff smooth, and I haven't got it yet.  Even rolling over the whole thing after all of the clay has been applied (like pie crust!) doesn't smooth out the lumpier bumps — this is right after doing so on the third wall —

I wanted a slightly irregular surface, not a lumpy one! 

It was clear from the start that quite a lot of sanding would be in order! and indeed there was.  It seems more than a bit wasteful to spend a goodish chunk of money on Paperclay and then sand fully half of it off, so all things considered, while I like the look, and I think that look works better for the "age" of these shops than simply painted MDF, for the next one I will try some kind of filler instead, that at least won't shrink.

The weights did help a bit — the walls are still noticeably bowed when you look at them from the bottom or the top edges, but I am telling myself that with the fittings and carpets in the shop, it won't be as obvious….

Someone on the Petitpointers list remarked — and she is a Master Artisan, so quite accomplished — that she ought to write a book called What Not To Do, and I had to admit that I have sometimes been tempted to split off my miniatures hobby into a separate blog, which in my darker moments would in fact be called "What Not To Do".

What Not To Do: Don't just assume, if a door has been separated for whatever reason from its frame, that you know which is the top and which is the bottom.  Double-check, especially, if you will be making holes for hardware or other bits and bobs.  I had already admired the bevel on the front door of this shop, and naively assumed that the bevel was on both sides.  I also forgot that in the dry-fitting some weeks ago, right out of the box, the temporarily-taped piece was at the top, so when I asked David to drill a hole in the bottom of the front door for the mail slot, I just handed him the loose piece, since it was at the bottom the way I was holding it at the moment.  It wasn't until I was putting the first coat of paint on the door that I realized I was painting an unbeveled door.  (My first thought was that I'd just have to live with it bevel-in, because if I turned it bevel-out the mail slot was at the top, obviously impractical for 1:12 mailmen! and then — reading the blogs of expert bashers is having yet another effect! — I thought, "Wait, can we flip the door so that it opens the other way?" and David, my expert-in-residence, said, "Um, sure!")

And so there has been a lot of painting chez Bluestocking, then sanding, painting again, sanding again (using a palm sander on the Paperclay, a huge help in smoothing it out), touching up splodges, &c. &c. &c.

A test-run for potential lettering.  I am still wavering between Dilshad, the Persian name meaning "joyful" or "happy heart", and Golbahar, which means "like a rose in spring".  Both appealing in meaning, though I lean to the former for meaning and to the latter for euphoniousness (at least to a non-Persian-speaker).  Golbahar fits better in the space, and the visual weight is balanced more evenly with that of "Fine Carpets," but do I want to be that ruthlessly practical?!