Seven Months of Silence

Wow, I almost can't believe it is seven months since I last posted. Real life has been very busy and filled with some difficult times. Progress on miniatures has been slow, but finally I have some things I can show you.

Remember the French washstand I made last year, during November I made a Victorian bath towel for it based on some real ones that I saw on the internet. Mine is made from 50 count linen with a crochet edge made using a 0.4mm hook and some cotton sewing thread, the embroidery design dates from Victorian times and were stitched with Pipers Silk.

A close up of the stitching.

Hanging on the washstand, now I must do the embroidery on the second towel.

I spend some time building the second room for my Cape Dutch house during the last six weeks. The house is finally standing in a decent place where I have good access to it after we moved some furniture around.

The front of the house with the entrance hall in the center, to the right is the bedroom I just built, the empty spot on the left will become the drawing room.

The space behind the front rooms of the house will have a corridor in the middle behind the entrance hall with a kitchen behind the bedroom and a dining room behind the drawing room.

One will have a nice view through the doors into the other rooms. The furniture I used here is just to give you an idea of my plans for the bedroom, most of them won't be used here.

The wallpaper I used for the panels is gift wrap with a chinoiserie design dating from 1780, since the pattern is quite big I decided to use it in panels so as not to overwhelm the room. I am thinking of painting the bottom panels just a shade darker before I add molding all around the panels. I plan on using the beautiful silk velvet for the curtains. Making the flooring for the bedroom is probably next, at this stage all the walls can still be removed, I find it a lot easier to work on them while they are lying flat.

I have made some progress on my 1740 rug which is destined for the bedroom, the colors match the wallpaper perfectly.  

Hopefully it won't be another seven months before you hear from me again!
Elga

Furniture and Petit Point

I realized the other day that I have only shown you a photo of the finished Federal sewing table, this table has many parts and proved a challenge to build. One thing I have discovered in building more than one of the same table, even though you cut all the parts at the same time and mill all the joinery simultaneously....once you start building, each table seems to take a shape of it's own and each individual drawer etc needs to be fitted separately for each table, so it becomes very important to keep each table and all it's pieces together and not mix them up. Why does it happen...I think because the tolerances are so small, even the finish can interfere with the fitting of a drawer.

Here is a table with all it's pieces, the top and the two small swing out drawers still needs to be fitted before I can glue the top on, I am using a pin hinge for these two drawers, so the drawers needs to be fitted and installed before I can glue the top on.

This one is almost done, I am in the process of putting the finish on this one and then the table top hinges will be glued on. Another challenge on this table is the raising top, it is only 1/16" thick and then you need to cut recesses into it for the hinges and stand.

For one of the tables I covered the big drawer with a silk bag, I think I will do that for my own table too and speaking of my table...

The petit point for it is coming along slowly but surely.

Since I am in the final stages with the last few tables I have started working on a new commission...this is the legs, the inlay isn't finished on these yet...stay tuned, in my next post I will tell you more about this piece and give a step by step tutorial on doing the inlay.

Remember the new rug I showed you a few weeks ago that I started of in french knots, well I ordered a book that I knew had a photo of the original rug in it.

Here is a scan of the full scale antique rug....but the real rug was done in cross stitch, it wasn't knotted and the outer border was a bit more colorful...so I started over again...

doing it in cross stitch now and I changed the border a bit, I love the colors of this rug, for those of you who owns Annelle Ferguson's book Traditional Stitches in Miniature, you can find the chart on page 78.

Have a great week
Elga

PS: The rain has stopped and the sun is out, the worst flooding happened in an area three hours north of us, my niece who stay in that area, her house got flooded, they stayed with her in-law's for the last week as the river got higher and higher, they could go to their house for the first time today, she says there is mud everywhere. Here are two photos as it looked late last week in the town.

This area had a lot of damage and I guess it will take quite awhile for things to go back to normal.

A Bit of This and That

This weekend turned up some unexpected treasures, I was asked by the chair lady of our club to go and look at some tools at an estate sale of a miniaturist that passed away last year, somebody I have never met as he only lived here for the last few years of his life to be closer to his family and he wasn't active in the local clubs. He was well known in Cape Town though and much loved by the members of the club there.

This man was a furniture maker and there were these chests of drawers mostly filed with all kinds of woods, both exotic and local woods, many that I would like to have but are difficult to come by either because of cost or rarity. The family seemed to be hoping that the wood would go to a good home and be used for miniatures. Well, I am saving for my trip to Denmark later this year and was torn in two....and then hubby came to the rescue and offered to buy it for me, the deal included the chests of drawers, a good thing because I wouldn't have known where to put it otherwise, there were ten drawers!

The two woods I was most happy to find was birdseye maple, hard to find in SA and expensive and the second stinkwood (so called because of the smell it gives when cutting it), a local hardwood that is protected now, it was extensively used in Cape Dutch furniture, a very dark and close grained wood...and I was just wondering last week where I was going to find enough of it....plus a kind friend has some that he can't use because of faults in the wood, the good parts are big enough to use for miniatures, so he is going to give it all to me when I see him again. I am really happy about all this as I like to use if I can the woods that were originally used for the antiques.

I spend some time over the weekend cutting more wall panels for the Cape Dutch house. View from what will be the front of the house, I had time to cut door openings in the one wall before the sun set, as I do this outside.

This will be the center wall of the house, fitting all those different roof lines are going to be an interesting exercise.

I also started a piece of embroidery last year for my newest sewing table, this one will be mine, I am copying an old English piece, you can see the original here, I used a different border from another antique sampler and moved it to the bottom as the bottom will be hidden when the screen is pulled up. I am cross stitching it on 75 count silk gauze with Pipers silk.

Well, that is all my news for now, have a great week everyone.
Elga  

Federal Sewing Table and a Padlock

I have been working for quite a few months now on another sewing table, it is similar to the one I made last year.

Here is a photo of the original antique table that inspired my miniature table. I have researched many of these tables and this is the only one that I have seen with this shape table top that follows the leg shape, all other tables with six sides has the leg put in at an angle like this example here. Getting the table shape correct was quite tricky especially doing the inlay.....

but I think I managed fine : )

For this table I had to make a silk bag as well.

The screen slides in the back legs.

I am making a total of eight of these tables, for one of them I had a special request, to stitch the petit point as well, thank goodness most of my clients wants to do the stitching themselves.

And then, I told you in my last post about the chest I am making, three of my friends and I am working together once every fortnight on the chests, one of them is making a chest with a latch, well, a latch needs a padlock.... now, doesn't it, so I set out last weekend to see if I cant make a padlock based on the lock we made in Bill Robertson's class in Castine.

Remember the key from my last post, it has lost a bit of metal over the weekend, the padlock is far from finished, it is stuck with lace pins into the wood. I still need to do some final filing, polishing and putting it together permanently, in this photo it is locked.

Unlocked, this was great fun to figure out and make.

Have a great week!
Elga

Petit Point, Turning and Carving

Lately I seem to function best when working on more than one project, as far as orders go I am working on caskets, I still have about seven of them to make. I am also busy with some sewing tables, different from the one I made last year, I will show them to you in another post. In between working on the orders I snatch a bit of time here and there to work on a few miniatures for myself.

I finally finished the back-stitching on the third casket panel, I only stitch on it in the evenings, for some reason I see it best then with my magnifying lamp, I think it is because the electric back-light is softer than the sunlight in the day. The panels are stitched on 90 count silk gauze.

Here is the link again to the original casket that I am copying, I am rather pleased at how close my panels represent the full scale casket.

I also do a bit of stitching in the mornings.

I started this rug about two years ago, at one stage I put it aside because I just had no time for it, I have picked it up again since Castine, it is stitched with French Knots on 40 count silk gauze and the chart is an original Victorian chart that I found on the Antique Library website.

I found a gorgeous little ivory pincushion on the internet the other day and couldn't resist copying it in miniature.

The top is actually a lid, there is storage space inside for more pins.

The turned ivory part of the pincushion, the original pincushion is oval, I made mine round.

I cut the lid out of a bigger piece of metal that I had prepared for hinge making with a syringe needle silver soldered to the metal. Because it is so tiny I decided to drill two tiny holes 0,3mm into the ivory for the hinge pin, it worked very well, by the way the squares on my cutting mat is 1cm square.

And here it is open on my sewing table, now I must just stick a few pins into it, I have an idea on how to make a few tiny pins, but haven't had time to try it yet.

And lastly I am busy making a Spanish Colonial Chest, I am practicing all the new skills I learned in Castine this year on the chest, hand cut dovetails, carving, metal work and a working lock.

Here is the back of the chest with a V-groove gouge that I made out of oil hardening drill rod, something that Bill Robertson showed us how to make in Castine.

The back and one side joined with hand cut dovetails, not perfect but not too bad for a first try in wood. The wood that I am using is South African White Pear, an ornamental tree and no relation to the European Pear. It was used a lot in South African Colonial days for wagon building and gun-stocks, it is a protected tree now so the wood is scarce.

In order to make a working lock, I needed a key, in Castine Bill Robertson gave us each one that he had cast. I turned mine out of brass with a big fat part on the end, which I then grounded flat with my Dremel and then drilled two holes next to each other to form the oval hole. Lastly I silver soldered a small piece of flat brass on to form the blade of the key, this part may still need a bit of trimming to fit nice and tight into the lock. Here is the link to the original chest, still a lot of work to be done, but it is a fun piece to make.

Have a great week.
Elga

Petit Point

Just a quick short post. I am busy stitching for the screen of a sewing table and have reached the halfway stage.

I charted this myself from an antique piece dating from the second quarter of the 18th century, you can see the original here. I am stitching it on 70 count silk gauze with Pipers silk.

Have a great week everyone
Elga

Dome Topped Casket

I finished the first dome topped casket last week and it is already safely in New York with its new owner. South Africa's shipping costs are quite high and lately DHL, a worldwide courier has dropped their prices here that makes it an affordable option. I love the fact that I can track the parcel through each airport on their website, I posted this one on Wednesday morning, it departed Johannesburg on Wednesday evening, arrived in London the next morning, went to Germany on Thursday evening (I think the planes to the USA from London was full), arrived in New York at 7:15 am on Friday morning and was delivered just before noon. Pretty good I think, I wonder if the casket enjoyed its world trip ;-)

Here you can see the casket all closed up, it is 30mm (1 3/16") wide by 36mm (1 7/16") high.

With the top lid open, they loved to put a picture front to back in this tiny compartment, it would then reflect the right way in the mirrors. The caskets were generally stitched by girls between the ages of 12 to 15 and it definitely had a play factor to it too.

With the second lid open too, getting it to stay like this is a fine balancing act :-)

View from the front.

The top compartment reflecting in the mirror of the domed lid.

With the sliding panel, ink tray and pincushion out.

And with all the little drawers out.

It is going to take a few months to do the stitching, having the final dimensions of the casket, I sat over the weekend and worked out the total amount of stitches needed to cover the casket, around a whopping 46000 stitches, WOW! I worked out that it takes me about an hour to stitch a 160 stitches, so that means a total of about 290 hours of stitching time. I can only stitch about two hours a day on this fine count, I don't want to over strain my eyes, so I have had to accept that getting to a finished casket is going to take longer than I thought, so what else is new, I really should know that by this time, as every project so far has taken longer than I thought it would. Now if only I could add another 8 hours to my day, maybe things would work out in real as in my mind:-)

I have started the back panel of the casket right next to the side panel, I will just fold it at the corners of the casket. I think that one long strip will be easier to handle than three tiny pieces of stitching, the empty space between the panels will be covered by I think a flat silk ribbon as they used flat tapes way back in the 17th century. My casket is based on this one in the MET museum and tells the Bible story of Joseph, the panel on the left shows Joseph with his aged and dying father Jacob, Joseph promised Jacob to take him out of Egypt and bury him with his forefathers and I think this is what is happening in this scene. The back panel shows Joseph running away from Potiphar's wife and Joseph then in prison with Pharoah's chief baker and wine taster. You can find the story of Joseph in the last few chapters of Genesis, I went and read it again to figure out which part of the story each panel depicts.

Have a wonderful week everyone
Elga

Victorian Berlin Wool-work

Wow, I see I last showed you this piece of petit point way back in August, well, I finished it this week. It is cross stitched onto 58 count silk gauze with Pipers Floss silk. The chart is a photograph of an original Victorian chart from Raffaella Serena's book Berlin Work, Samplers & Embroidery of the Nineteenth Century.

So, which one did I stitch?

You didn't have to wait too long to find out ;-)

I framed it in a 140 year old photo frame from the Ambrotype period of  photographing. Because I was a bit worried that the brass coating of the frame would damage the petit point, I lined the inside with paper. I mounted the petit point with scrap-booking tape onto a piece of plastic and then stitched right through all the layers with my sewing machine. Yes, I do weird things with my trusty 26 year old Singer and it has never given me any problems.

The outer frame is rounded, hollow and made from a very thin piece of brass, it was dented in one place when I bought it. So in order to prevent that from happening again I used some half round molding to fill the frame with.

I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

In its place in the dining room, for the photo I held it in place with double-sided tape, I still need to figure out what I am going to do with the back before I add some chains with which I want to hang it on the brass rod. The antique shelf was also bought at Lucy's.

Oh, yes, if you read the history of the Ambrotype in the link I gave you and was maybe wondering about the original photograph in the frame. You can still see the image of a young Victorian girl on the glass when you put it against a dark background. I bought the frame in 2011 at Lucy's Doll House in Camden, Maine on the way to Guild School in Castine.

Have a wonderful week

Elga