“When I found myself on my feet, I looked about me, and must confess I never beheld a more entertaining prospect. The country around appeared like a continued garden, and the enclosed fields, which were generally forty feet square, resembled so many beds of flowers.” - when Gulliver looked over the tiny land around him. Gulliver’s Travels

why are miniature things so appealing?

i love miniatures, maybe too much. they make me feel greedy, and covetous. i want to have them and keep them. my precious… there is something about tiny things which invokes voyeurism, secrecy, nostalgia- some little interiors you can peek your eye into, imagining yourself there. i spent ages when i was little dreaming in miniature spaces.

nowadays, i’m such a weirdo, i buy re-ment miniatures in the combini (convenience store) in japan, and i bring them home and greedily open the package, then hide the fact that i bought them because i feel guilty i spent money on something so useless.

miniatures have always been fascinating, but hard-to-get. as small as they are, they are always expensive because of the time and effort that goes into them. just think of the damage one artist did to her eyes making miniature crocheted items- check out these pics of sage trytle’s miniature crocheted afghans which were featured here on whip-up.

the club little house is for people who make scale miniatures. it was invented by amy powers at inspire co. and there’s only 12 people allowed in each swap… so that makes me feel even more covetous. i first heard about it from posie gets cosy, who recently finished her cute miniature cabinets complete with plates.

i love to look at the pretty doll houses, like this one from all sorts renovated in march, and the one at turkey feather’s site. the blog at About.com also has consistently good posts on miniatures. however, i’ve got something too intensely practical that would probably not allow me to actually own and decorate a dollhouse, without at least having a daughter to ‘cover’ for me.

fake it!

if you can’t make miniatures, you can always fake it! on flickr, there is a trend of making and faking miniature scenes. with the judicious use of the blur tools in photoshop, they are acheiving some fascinating images. in this tutorial, a photographer shows how to make your own photos looks like minis: miniature toy effect.

the flickr community may be weary of this trend, but i haven’t even started yet. i want everything in miniature!

• for the love of online fabric shopping
• Quilt Artist of the Week: Valerie S. Goodwin
• Quilt Artist of the Week: Wendy Huhn
• Book review: Blackstock’s collections: The drawings of an Artistic Savant by Gregory L. Blackstock
• Quilt Artist of the Week: Regina Alexandra

This entry was posted on Monday, June 5th, 2006 at 10:05 am and is filed under toys+plush+fun. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.