One of the last Victorian houses

On a day trip to Bournemouth yesterday we visited a really cool art gallery/museum which was built between 1897 and 1901, and thus is one of the last Victorian houses constructed in the UK.

The Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum was originally built as a family home and to house the collections of a world-travelling couple.  As their collections grew, they redeveloped the house to display their items and eventually donated the house to the city of Bournemouth as a museum and art gallery.  As well as being full of fantastic art and sculpture, the historic rooms of the older part of the house are really decorative and elaborate.

I suppose it is roughly the same era as the Willowcrest house is supposed to represent, so here is some eye candy from the interior.

The world of Willowcrests

Wow.  After Elaine left such a helpful comment on my post about 'What's in a name' where I was musing on what to name my quilting/knitting emporium, I went to have a look at her blog.

Elaine has put together a fantastic post here about all the great Willowcrests she has found online.  It's fascinating to see all of the ingenious treatments people have given to the same basic kit, and I think I could waste a lot of time surfing around the other Willowcrest sites.

Only now I am feeling a bit sad because my Willowcrest is locked up in a self storage unit a few miles away and I don't know when I am going to see it again.

But have a look at Elaine's blog, you're sure to get some great ideas!

What's in a name?

As part of the house packing process, I've been cleaning out my desk and I found the slip of paper where I was jotting down possible business names for my Willowcrest quilting and knitting shop.  The name was waiting for the construction process to finish, and will go up on the front of the house and on a folding board in the garden.

I was wondering: 'where can I put this list of names so that I can find it again when we eventually unpack?' and realised the best place to put it was on this blog!

So here are the possibilities so far:

• Willowcrest Quilts and Knits
• Quilter's General Store
• Willowcrest Quilts and Yarn
• Quilter's Junction
• Quilter's Corner
• Quilter's Cottage
• The Quilter's Mercantile
• Quilter's Rest
• Quilter's Crossing
• The Quilted Sheep

None of them particularly original, I know.  I think my favourites at the moment are 'The Quilted Sheep' and 'Willowcrest Quilts and Knits' although the latter seems a bit dull.

What do you think?

Going into storage

We are packing up our real house ready to put it on the market, so all of the dollshouses are going into self-storage at Easter including the Willowcrest.  It's all packed up and ready.

Here is an excerpt from my main blog explaining how I packed my dollshouses:

"I'm packing the dollshouse stuff the same way I did last time we moved.  I tend to stick things into my houses anyway, either permanently, or temporarily using tacky wax, so there aren't many loose things.  Life is too short to take everything out and wrap it individually.  So what I do is wad up tissue paper and carefully place it into each room, filling the nooks and crannies until the entire room is held lightly in place with tissue paper.  If there is something heavier that lacks support, for example a doll, then I will wrap it individually and place it back into the room. For big rooms, once I've covered everything with tissue paper, I might fill in interior voids with crumpled newspaper or bubble wrap.  Once all the voids are filled, I either seal the opening with cling film in the case of a room box or 1:48 house, or in the case of a bigger house, wrap it in bubble wrap then lightly hold that on by wrapping parcel tape around the bubble wrap.  So that nothing can shift or fall out as it is a sealed environment.  Eventually, when I unpack, I will unpack on a low table placed in the centre of a bedsheet on the carpet, and I will carefully open out each piece of packing material to check that nothing small is embedded in it.  Last time very few things came loose, and I was able to spot them in the packing material.  Worst case scenario, they fall onto the bedsheet where they can easily be spotted."

The Willowcrest is too big to go into a box, so I've just bubblewrapped the heck out of it and we will carry it carefully.  It will probably have to lie on its back in the car, which is going to test the packing arrangements, but I know it's all safely sealed up so even if something does come loose, it shouldn't fall out or get lost.

This blog was already in hibernation, but it will stay that way now for a year or so until we are in our new home.  Hopefully I will have a dollshouse display area and a place to work on my minis.