Queen Anne Chair: Cutting the cabriole legs

Here the first cut is done on the chair leg, I marked the profile edge with a black marker, if you cut into it you will have to start over again with a jig, so be careful. It is a good idea to also mark on your leg post which side is the top of the leg, it is easy to get confused when you take it out and put it back for the next cut.



Here you can see the second cut, the leg was turned 90 degrees for this cut, move the jig from the left to the right while you are cutting, it takes quite a few passes before it is done. I am using a 1/8" thick cutter and the pin is the same diameter, there is a tiny space between the cutter and the pin, they are not touching and shouldn't. You basically cut until the pin glides smoothly against your jig profile. Of course a normal drill press moves up and down so you have to find a way to keep it locked on the height that you want.



Here you can see the leg after the first two cuts.



Now we need to move the leg to the other side of the jig for the last two cuts, to cut the back profile of the knee. you can see one of the flat sides are facing you.



The cut finished.



Turn the leg again 90 degrees for the last cut, your last flat side on the wood will face you.



Next I put the leg in a lathe to turn the feet, you can do this by hand too, I only turned it flat, the curve from the bottom will be done by hand.



The cutting on all four legs are finished, now there still is a lot of hand finishing left to do, at the moment they are square, but we want them nice and round.

Elga

Queen Anne Chair: Cabriole legs Jig making

I bought this book last year after I saw it in my mini club's library, the patterns are for making full size furniture, but I just fell in love with the Queen Anne chair and I have finally started to make two of them. As I work on them I will describe the process.



The first step was to scan the pattern and reduce it to 1/12 scale, I then printed a few copies because they are going to be cut up to use as patterns in making jigs. I am going to use Tom Waldon's pin routing instructions to make jigs so that all my parts will be symmetrical, it is a lot of work BUT you will have perfectly matching chair legs and if you ever want to make some more chairs in the future your jigs will be all ready. In his list of articles look for those that mentions pin routing, it looks complicated but I often find that step 2 makes more sense after I have done step 1, etc.



First I cut the leg pattern out from my pattern, add about 3/8" on both sides lenghtwise, these handles will help to keep everything square. Cut a piece of 1/16" thick plywood to this length, the width is up to you, but needs to be big enough to hold comfortably. Glue your two chair leg profiles on each side making sure that the top of your legs are lying the same direction, mine are already cut out in the photo. Next you need to cut out your profiles either with a jigsaw or handsaw (I didn't cut out the foot part as it is very small and I am going to turn that part on the lathe afterwards). Next you need to make sure that the edges of your leg profiles are smooth and to your satisfaction.



Next turn your piece of wood upside down and glue two ends on, the same length as the width of your jig, mine is from 1/16" thick wood, the height is 1/4" and is determined by the size of the leg measured over its widest point. Next you need to add two stop blocks that are 1/4" in from the side because you need your leg post to stop against something solid. Don't glue anything in the middle, you are going to need the space to push your leg post out after each cut from the opposite side, with a brush handle or something similar.



Here you can see that I have put two of my leg posts in to check that everything is flush.



Now I have added a top that is about 1/32" smaller on each side so as not to interfere with the cutting process on the drill press. You can see my first leg post is in the jig and ready to be cut. Next installment to follow soon...........

Elga

French Knot Rug

Although I haven't posted much in the last two months that doesn't mean that I have been idle, in fact, I have been very busy.
I have progressed a lot on my french knot rug, 3/4 of it is done. The rug is stitched on 40 count silk gauze using one strand of DMC.

My commission pieces for Natalia are all done, but I will wait until she has received it before I post any pictures of the last piece that I made for her.

I am starting a new project and will post a kind of a tutorial for it over the next few weeks, it will involve furniture making.

Elga

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.