Great News

I have been very quiet lately, I know. First of all I dropped my camera 2 months ago and damaged it beyond use, but yesterday my husband spoiled me with a new one.

The other good news is that I received my passport back from the USA embassy today with a visa valid for 10 years to travel to and from the USA, so I am all set for attending IGMA's Guild School in June this year as a scholarship student. I will be doing Carol Hardy's Tall Clock class and Bill Robertson's hinges class. I am so excited about this wonderful learning oppurtunity.

Afterwards I will visit my brother in Norway, if any of you know of any doll house shops in the Stavanger, Kristiansand and Oslo area please let me know.

Elga

Night Table Finished!!! Yeah!!!

I finished the embroidery yesterday and put the whole thing together, I am so pleased at how it turned out, the embroidery is covered with 1/32" thick plastic (off-road biking goggles).



View from the side. I used 3/32" thick wood for the top and it was quite a challenge to fit everything in.



View of the top. The embroidery was done on 60 count silk gauze with Gutermann silk thread. The chart is from the book Berlin Work Samplers & Embroidery by Raffaella Serena.

Happy New Year to everyone.

Elga

Night Table Update

Here is 2 of the 3 night tables that I have been busy with. The one on the left has it's drawer and top lying in front, the top still needs to get the glass and embroidery in (I am still busy with the embroidery, will probably have it finished later this week). I struggled finding some thin enough plastic to use for the glass, well sometimes you find the right thing in the most unexpected places. A few weeks ago I went with my husband to a motorbike shop and lo and behold they sell replacement visors for the goggles that bikers use for off-road biking and it is only 1/32" (0.8mm) thick , just perfect. The table on the right has a solid wood top and is ready to be delivered to it's new owner.



The finished size of the night table is 2 1/8" (54mm) high and the top is 1 3/4" (45mm) square.I learned a lot of new techniques while making this, I had to overcome a lot of difficulties that cropped up but all in all a wonderful learning curve.

Elga

Victorian Kitchen

The kitchen was the first room that I built in this house when I was still very new to the hobby. I built the stove from the kit that came with the house but I made a lot of changes to it, the door leading to the hallway is also my own work.



You can get a glimpse of the hallway through the kitchen door. I made the little salt box and the plate is a paper plate with a picture of a real plate glued on top. I crocheted the potholders using a real life pattern.



I made all the furniture in this photo and hand painted the colonial chest.



To the left you can see a bit of the scullery which I will show you in a next post. I made the pie safe as well, making miniature furniture is something that I really enjoy very much.



The dresser is still far from finished, the stain needs to be redone and it still needs some drawers and doors on the bottom half. The little spice drawers in the top part can pull out and they still need knobs, as you can see I love blue and white porcelain, my real kitchen also has quite a collection.



Here you can see the kitchen as it looks today, the table and chairs were also made from the kits that came with the house, I used Houseworks legs for the table. The candle box is also one that I made and painted. The container next to the dresser is an antique fair find and is Dutch.

Until next time.
Elga

Victorian Dollhouse History

I started my blog with a few pictures of my Victorian dollhouse and decided to tell you a bit of it's history. It started out as a Del Prado kit that was available in weekly parts, I quickly realized that it wasn't the best quailty kit out there and that I will have to make a plan to make it better. I lined the bottom with 2 sheets of 12mm thick MDF and the outside walls with 6mm MDF, I also enlarged the right side rooms and added bay windows on that side. Next to the kitchen I added a scullery. The house is quite sturdy now, but I would not recommend a cheap kit for anyone, but well, this one did get me into the hobby :-) This house is still far from finished, I am building it room by room, but at the moment I don't have a lot of time to spend on it, as I am busy with some 1/12 scale furniture commissions and working on a French Knot rug that I want to take to IGMA's Guild School next year in Castine as part of my exhibition, I haven't mentioned this before but I won a scholarship to attend Guild School in 2011 and I am really looking forward to it.



Here you can see the right side of the house, each brick is individually made from woodstrip and painted with DecoArt's sandstones paint. A plaster filler is smeared all over the bricks after they are glued in place, a terrible messy and dare I say boring job, but I love the results.



This is the left side and here you can see the scullery, it swings open from the house so that one can easily get into it, I still need to make a lot of furniture for the porch.



This is a quarter of the French Knot rug that I am busy stitching, it takes me about 2 1/2 hours to make 250 knots, so it is slow going, but I will have it done in time for Guild School. It will go into the bay window of the dining room when it is finished. As soon as I have time, I will post pictures of each room in the house, well the ones that are there in any case.
Till next time, Elga.

Night Table With Petit Point Insert in Top

I have started on a new project, this is going to be a night table with a petit point insert on the top based on a photo of a real life table.In the first photo you can see the legs, sides and back pieces in various stages of being glued together. I got brave on this one and tried tongue and groove joints, not perfect but I am pleased with my first attempt.

In the next photo you can see the table framework all glued together.

In the third photo you can see that I have added the piece which will act as a stop for the drawer, the top will be glued on here with place in the middle for the petit point. The bottom piece is ready to be glued on.



In the last photo I put the table next to one of my HOM Chippendale chairs so that you can see it's size, now it is waiting for a drawer and the top, that might take another week or two as RL is intruding this week with my husband's 50th birthday and my daughter's graduation. Oh, and I am busy making 3 of these tables, one for me, one for Natalia who commisioned this piece and well the third one, that one will be for sale to anyone that would like to embroider the insert themselves.

Well, back to work now, the RL house needs a tidy up before the birthday party, and I need to bake a cake, some tarts and make salads for the very traditional South African "Braai" (barbeque) that we will have on Friday night to celebrate.

Footstool Finished!!!!!

Well, my footstool is finally finished, hope you all like it.

Footstool Commission 4

I finally finished all the footstools, I placed a coin in one to give you an idea of scale, my coin is almost 7/8" in diameter, I am busy stitching a cover for one on 48 count silk gauze and should have that finished soon. The chart is available from Victorian Crossstitch.

Footstool Commission 3

Turned feet in different stages

Completed unpainted footstool

I have finished turning all the feet for the footstools, it was the first time that I used a lathe so that was quite a learning curve, but I must say that once I got the hang of it I really enjoyed it. The feet are all glued in now and I have started painting them, so they should be finished soon, I have also started to petit point a cover for one of the square stools.

Footstool Commission 2

I finally had time to continue working on my footstool commission, between visiting family members and tool issues (things just not made as they should be, router table not square but dipping in, etc, etc, good brand names on top of it, so not very impressed, does these people ever test their products ????) it took me much longer than expected. They still need their feet, but I am quite pleased with how they are turning out, they are standing on a Lego block so that should give you an idea of their scale.