The Old Woman in the Shoe Part III

I haven't said much about this carving thus far.  I've had this idea for about a year.  I've been looking at different illustrations, read over the nursery rhyme a couple of times, even looked for original carvings.  I gave consideration to various woods and types of carvings.  I really wanted to do this in the round and in Cottonwood bark, but decided instead to go with Basswood for a variety of reasons.  

You can see that I am creating an extension where a foot would go into the shoe into a sort of top-of-the-house portion with a roof.  I've gotten shingles done on the one side of the roof so far.  The ladder is to go to a door.  One of the things I haven't worked out is whether I will try to hollow out behind any doors or windows I carve into into it, allowing light through the carving.  I do that on all of my Cottonwood "house" carvings.  Thus far I'm fairly pleased with the direction and have some ideas of the other "whimsical" details I can put in to make this carving a more fun piece to look at and experience.

Some other notes.  The shoe is one solid piece, and was sanded with a large sanding mop on a drill press.  The house-extension and roof are two pieces.  The shingles are hand carved and the doors and windows will most likely be hand carved into the shoe and house extension directly, but I have thought of things like a shutter hanging off of a window at an angle (obviously have to glue that on) and another ladder might be fun plus some other details that I won't reveal until they're created.