Finished Sewing Tables!

Two of my clients has finished the petit point for their sewing tables, it was so exciting to see what they have stitched for their tables.

First to finish hers was Peggy Bugg, Peggy actually stitched it with instructions as to size from me, and brought it to Castine last year where I helped her late one night to put it into her frame.

Peggy chose a design from Annelle Ferguson's book Traditional Needlework in Miniature, (goodness me, the prices that some sellers ask!!!) Peggy stitched her design on 48 count silk gauze with DMC. We both were so tired at Castine that we forgot to take any photos, Peggy recently send me this photo.

Lisa Salati just finished her table yesterday and send me a few photos.

Lisa decided to chart her own design based on the needlework of this fire screen in the Metropolitan museum in New York, I think she did a wonderful job in down scaling the design to make it work in 1/12 scale. Lisa stitched her design on 68 count silk gauze with Pipers silk.

Showing Lisa's screen out of the table, Lisa wanted the design to continue harmoniously in the bottom part of the screen that is hidden when the screen is in the table. She decided to add a pedestal beneath the vase after we talked about it a bit and found some other samples of 18th century embroidery that show vases of flowers on pedestals.

Thank you Peggy and Lisa for sharing your wonderful petit point, both your sewing tables looks really wonderful.

Elga

The Adventure Begins!

In less than four hours I will go to the airport for my trip to Amsterdam and Castine, Josje will meet me at the airport, what fun! I hope I see some of you at the Rheda show on Sunday. Here are a few photos of the last ten months work, what a learning curve this was. Enjoy!

The Sewing Tables

The Gothic Chippendale Chairs

Tilt and Turn Tables

Rhode island Easy Chairs

Have a great weekend
Elga

Sewing Table: All the Pieces

Here you can see all the individual pieces that make up the sewing table.  This first table is just about finished, I still want to put some beeswax on it once the Danish oil has properly cured and I need to drill two tiny slots in the table for the hinges of the tabletop.

One of the last pieces of woodworking I needed to do on this piece was to finish the tabletop on top of the screen. Here the screen is in the down position, I deliberately positioned the inlay so as to help disguise the lines of the cutout for the screen.

The screen pulled up, getting the screen to slide but also stay up where you want it was a very fine line of sanding it either too thin and slipping down or leave it too thick and getting stuck. It was the easiest to make it oversize and then refine it, the slots in the back of each table were just slightly different even though it was cut with the same cutter.

View from the back with the tabletop raised. The brass candlestick was made by Bill Robertson.

The front from the right side and.......

the front from the left side.

I am looking forward to see the petit point that my four clients are going to put into their screens, hopefully they will give me photos to post here in a few months.

Elga

PS: You can see the original table that I copied here, click on the photo to see a larger view.

Some things are really SMALL!!!!

I finally managed to finish the screen frames for the sewing tables, they are really small, here is the back showing the rebate where the petit point will fit in.

I tea-dyed my petit point, the white background was just too bright and I also had to disguise a few dirt marks that the white thread picked up along the way.

I cut a piece of plastic to fit the frame and covered the one side with double side tape to mount the petit point to the plastic.

The petit point mounted to the plastic. Next I sealed the last row of stitching on all four sides with glue....

And then.... a real SCARY step, cut all the extra gauze off!!!!

Showing it in the table that still needs a few finishing touches.

Even with the table top raised you still see the birds.

Elga

Hinge Making.

After a few trails and errors I finally managed to make a set of working hinges, I used 0.010" thick brass sheet to cut the hinges from. The double-folded brass sheet is mounted on a scrap piece of plywood with double side tape for stability while cutting out with the jewelers saw. My hinge is just a bit less than 1/8" wide by about 1/4' long including the barrel tabs.

The first part cut out. 

The two parts fitting nicely together after a bit of filing with very fine files that are generally available from jewelry making supply shops.

I got so engrossed in the task that I forgot to take anymore photos!!!! I struggled with rolling the hinge barrel small enough, the hinges I made in Castine are big ones for Castle doors so the wire I used there were thicker than the 0.020" thick wire I needed to use here. I bought this little jewelers round nose pliers and between my husband and I we filed the one side down to 0.035" thick, I would like it even thinner but I am worried it will start bending and breaking off. Next I beveled the edges of the hinges and polished them with silicon nail files.

The finished hinges installed, since the table top is so thin I am not going to use nails, so they are glued on with epoxy glue. I also offset the hinge leaves so that I only needed to rout out a very small section of the table top at a deeper level, since the hinges and support stand needs to sink completely into the table top so that it can lie flat when the tabletop is closed.

Now I still need to make the hinges to join the table top to the table itself. I found this tutorial the other day when I was looking for some info on making hinges and just about a half hour ago this one from Karin Corbin that shows another way of rolling the barrel, something I am going to try, I am sure I have some very thin music wire here somewhere. Oh and if you ever want to try making such small hinges, I would recommend a good dose of perseverance ;-)

Elga

Updates on various projects

I haven't worked on the sewing tables for the last few weeks, I really just needed a break from them after working on them for the last 6 months, but I have just about finished stitching the petit point for it, just 3 more rows of white to go. The stitching is just a tad wider than 1 inch as the opening in the screen is only an inch wide. I found the chart in Raffaella Serena's book Berlin work Samplers and Embroidery of the 19th century, she charted it from an 1850's sampler that is in the V&A museum in London. I stitched the design with Pipers Silk on 75 count silk gauze.

I also started stitching a cover for the Queen Anne stool that I am making at our mini club over Feb and March. This time I am cross stitching on 60 count silk gauze once again with the Pipers silk. What you see here is the design for the four sides of the cushion, the central part will look different, the chart is part of Geometric patterns, an original Victorian chart that was digitized by Roland Designs in Norway.

On the wood work front I worked yesterday with my friends on our Wednesday project. We cut the dovetails on the top, bottom and sides for the top case of the Pennsylvania Secretary, it was the first time that I made dovetails, we used a jig, I am not quite happy with the fact that they are not symmetrical at the sides, but all the jointing will be covered by moldings in any case. I will check out the jig carefully before cutting dovetails for the drawers which will be visible. I also made a groove in the sides in the wrong place, fortunately that part will be completely covered with face boards and molding, I simply don't have time to do it over again. The five shelves has been cut and are ready to receive grooves for various dividers in the top and bottom of the cupboard. The wood is Imbuia salvaged from an old table, lots of this wood was imported from Brazil in the 1950's and 60's and was used widely for all kinds of furniture in South Africa.

I am also busy turning some more stretchers for the Rhode Island easy chairs that I am busy with. Next week I plan on turning the pad feet on the cabriole legs and starting to put them all together.

Wow, I am feeling tired all of a sudden now ;-)

Elga

Making the Casters

Since so many of you were interested in how the casters were made, I decided to show you a few photos of the process. The caster wheel consists of  four parts, from left to right they are the wheel, the cup part where the wooden leg fits in, the caster and lastly the axle. The wheel and cup were turned on the lathe from a 1/8" thick brass dowel, the hole in the wheel and the hole in the cup for the leg was drilled while still on the lathe. The axle was cut from 0.020" thick brass wire. The most tricky part to make was the caster part and my husband Greg put a lot of thought into the process.

The caster part was made from 0.078" (2mm) thick brass sheet, Greg marked out all the rectangles for the casters and drilled the holes for the wheel axle and the pin on the cup before sawing out each rectangle.

Next he made two jigs out of steel for the different curves of the caster, here it is in the first jig ready to be filed, a piece of the axle wire is holding it in place.

The bottom curve has been filed.

In the second jig ready to be filed for the next curve.

Out of the second jig, now the back will be filed nice and round around the hole where the pin from the cup fits through.

Now for the really tricky part and it was difficult to take a photo, marking and cutting the slot for the wheel. The slot was made by sawing out the waste with a jewelers saw and then fine tuning with files.

Next Greg put the cup part and the caster together, cutting off the excess on the pin and peening the pin so that the caster won't fall off.

View from the bottom, here you can see the slot for the wheel.

Putting the wheel into the slot and using that massive hammer head in the back to peen the axle so that the wheel will stay put.

Thank you Greg!!!! You have done a beautiful job!!!!!

Elga

Building the Bin Drawer

Today I want to show you how I build the bin drawer, I thought it was going to be difficult with all those angles, but once I figured out the angle it was actually quite easy, making the sliding frame for the bin was a whole lot more difficult with all the rebates that I needed to cut and I totally forgot to take photos of that part. I also forgot to take photos of cutting the bin pieces, so I went back and did that, just imagine the wood in the first 2 photos as card-stock (I have already thrown the template away).

To start with I cut a card-stock template of the bin front and used that to set my angle on the slide of my table saw, the blade is tilted to 45 degrees as I am using miter cuts, so that no end grain will be visible on the bin.

Next I used the card-stock to set the stop on my saw so that all the pieces would be the same size, I first cut a few pieces from scrap to make sure the sizes are correct.

Here the first piece is cut (still scrap wood).

Here the wood is flipped over for the second cut, by just flipping the wood after each cut I could cut all the pieces quickly and easily without wasting any wood. The sides are narrower so after all the fronts and backs were cut I just reset the stop for the smaller sides.

I cut a rebate on the bottom of each piece with the drill press for the bottom of the bin. Looking a bit like puzzle pieces.

Now I turned all the pieces with the outside to the top, lined them up carefully and taped all the pieces together.

Checking that it goes together right and it is!!!! 

Next I cut the bottom and made sure it fitted tightly before I put glue on all the mitered edges and taped the last corner together, the bottom helps to keep it square while the glue dries.

The glue is dry and the bin is ready to be fitted into the sliding frame.

It fits beautifully after a bit of final sanding, all the rebates on the frame was cut on the drill press.

Looking down into the bin.

And here the bin drawer is inserted into the sewing table,now for the last piece, the sliding screen in the back. The sewing table has been a real lesson in how to fit many little parts together. I still have 20 hinges to make and a lot of finishing to do, but the end is in sight. I am also starting on my new project next week, Chippendale chairs, so watch this space as I will show how to make all the details.

Elga