A challenging interlude

After all the excitement of the opening of Small Worlds last Saturday I have been enjoying the lack of pressure in the past few days.   It's been a joy to sit in Small Worlds knowing that there is nothing I actually need to do apart from interacting with anyone who drops by.

So I have had a chance to turn my mind to the House of Bears Challenge for June.   I don't really do challenges but I do love the House of Bears and I enjoyed putting together the last one I entered so when I saw it was more literary quotes I thought I would have a go.

Now Bears, I have to confess that when I read the challenge some time back, I managed to get fixed in my head the idea that the quotes were from Pride and Prejudice (I know, I know, what on earth was I thinking?)   Since you kindly offered the option of picking a different quote from the book if the ones you suggested didn't quite chime, I had the happy thought of downloading the book to my Kindle to take it with me to Small Worlds.   Fortunately I took another look at the challenge details before I did.....

I quailed when I saw it was Jane Eyre.....Why quailed I hear you ask?   Well I thought I always hated that book.   

But Bears, dear Bears, I have to thank you so much for choosing it because I have so far enjoyed every page of it.   I read it when I was about 12, clearly far too young to appreciate it, and I haven't been near it since (60 years!)   I was amazed to find how witty it is and how beautifully written.   I think the other thing that has put me off in the past is the terribly sad and scary 1944 film version which has a very young Elizabeth Taylor dying tragically in the first reel.  I just watched the clip and find to my disgust that the scene that has stuck in my memory since 1952, of the two girls marching round the courtyard in the pouring rain - the episode which results in the death of Elizabeth - doesn't even appear in the book!

Anyway, back to the challenge which was to create something inspired by a quote from the book.   In the end I picked one of your quotes:

" I had to cross before the looking-glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it revealed"



Why this quote? Well simply because I had recently acquired a rather nice hand mirror (from that Czech cheapy store that Butterfly gets all her boxes and where we got the museum clock) that I wanted to use in some scene or other.   It's a little too large for a dolls house room but I thought it might work well with a dressing table that has been around for years, also out of scale for a dolls house.

I clearly then needed some sort of doll to peer into the mirrors and went on a hunt for some very sweet little dolls we have which look rather like miniature Sashas.   I was fairly sure they had stayed behind in England, along with our collection of full-size Sashas, but Butterfly assured me they were somewhere in Small Worlds.   

So I climbed to the very top of our long ladder

and tried to dig, whilst precariously balanced there, in the fruit crates that are holding the dolls in national costume.   This is not a good thing to do solo and when I found, near the top of one of the crates, a painted wooden jointed Dutch Doll I decided to give up the search for the mini-Sashas.   Anyway I liked the Dutch Doll better....

So now to combine the three elements and take a successful photo which reflected (oops, sorry) the quote 
" I had to cross before the looking-glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it revealed".

I have to tell you that is easier said than done.   I really wanted both to be able to see the doll's face  in the hand mirror and for that image to be reflected in the dressing table mirror.   

Ha ha.  Talk about a mind of her own. Every time I managed to get the angle right, Doll would drop her arm, or the mirror, or fall over.   I tried both ways round, posing her with her back to the dressing table, and then facing it.   I tried her sitting (and wasted time making a cushion for a twelfth scale sidetable for her to use as a stool, only to discover that of course her skirts completely covered it up).   I tried her standing.   

None of the photos really did what I wanted.   And do you know how tricky it is to photograph a reflection in a mirror without getting either yourself or the camera in the picture?  Very tricky.....

  













In the end I managed to get something more or less approaching what I was after so, for what it's worth, Bears, here is my offering for your June Challenge.  

And although, as I said before,  I don't really do challenges - in fact am not even aware of most of them - because Our Creative Corner has a strong family connection to me, I do keep an eye on it and when I realised this Through the Looking Glass set-up has many of the recipe elements for their current challenge I thought I might as well join in there too.   Though I suspect it will be hurled out again - because it's not really a creation, it's a choreographing....

From list A it contains all three ingredients, lace, fabric and ribbon, from List B it has wood, metal and clay (air-hardening clay is what both the tissue holder and the soap are made from) and from List C it has wood stain and paint......

As for the painted doll - despite her recalcitrance, I grew to quite like her and have not returned her to the fruit crate.   I have no idea when, where, or even why she originally joined our household but she is really rather nice.   She may appear again in reports from Small Worlds.

Thank you for reading thus far and I hope to see you again soon.

I am entering this in the House of Bears June Challenge
and in the Our Creative Corner June Recipe Challenge