Gorgeous doll’s house rooms from France

There are new images to see on the Customers’ Stitching page of my website this week, as I have had some lovely new pictures sent to me by Catherine, one of my French customers. She has been decorating her beautiful large doll’s house for four years, methodically completing each room one at a  time before going on to the next. So far, she’s completed five rooms, and several feature miniature needlepoint that she has made using kits bought from me. Her page is at the top of the list, when you follow the link above.

In the hallway of her house there is a ‘May (blue)’ Arts and Crafts carpet, in shades of deep blue and beige, which takes centre stage. This is stitched on 18 count canvas, using one strand of Appleton’s crewel wool. On the left hand side, there is a ‘May (blue)’ cushion on the hall chair, which features a motif taken from the centre of the carpet. This is a quick project for those who are new to mini stitching. It’s stitched on 22 count canvas, with two strands of Anchor cotton.

This room is decorated ready for Christmas. The dining table is standing on an ‘Alice, small (green)’ carpet. The matching ‘Alice’ footstool , stitched on 28 count evenweave, is alongside. On the table is a teacosy with the ‘Berlin woolwork’ design on it, alongside all the other tea things. In the background, to the right of the fireplace, you can just see an ‘Alice (green)’ bellpull. Both the teacosy and bellpull are stitched on 32 count silk gauze.

It’s a wonderful doll’s house, and Catherine has done a great job on the rooms that she has completed so far. I’m sure the other rooms will turn out just as beautifully when they are decorated, too.

Visit the Customers’ Stitching page of my website to see dozens more images of rooms to inspire you for your own doll’s house!

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Carolyn Pearce Home Sweet Home workbox 17: assembling the scissor keeper

I’ve finished embroidering the scissor keeper from Carolyn Pearce’s book ‘Home Sweet Home Workbox‘, and now I’m assembling it. Carolyn’s instructions are very clear for this item.

I cut a piece of thin wadding to back the embroidery with, and a piece of stiff interlining, both 6cm x 3cm. The two pence piece is to use as a weight inside the scissor keeper. I pressed the seam allowances over the piece of interlining, including the corners, to make it easier to get a nice tight finish.

I folded in the corners and slip stitched them together. Notice that I didn’t stitch right up to the corner point – otherwise I’d pull the piece out of shape.

Here are all four corners mitred. I also slip stitched the straight sides to the interlining, but I didn’t photograph that.

I made a fine cord from 30 inches of 10 strand silk, doubled to be 15 inches long, and then twisted up, and folded back on itself so that I had a finished cord around 7 inches long. Then I knotted the ends together to make a loop about three inches long, and stitched it together through the ends to make it secure, then attached it to the scissor keeper in the centre of one side (making sure that that was the top edge!).

I threaded some beads onto quilting thread, doubling it back around the end bead, then attached the  length of beads to the bottom edge of the scissor keeper.

I slip stitched around the three open sides with beige sewing thread, pushing the coin in as I started to stitch along the final side. Finally, I worked Knotted pearl stitch around the edge.

Here is the finished scissor keeper. It’s come out really neat, and I can see me using this before the rest of the project is finished 🙂

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Carolyn Pearce Home Sweet Home workbox 16: embroidering the scissor keeper

The next item I’ve decided to make from the Carolyn Pearce ‘Home Sweet Home Workbox’ book is the scissor keeper. The pattern in the book has a strawberry flower on the front, and an initial on the back. I’ve decided to stitch a group of 3 anemones instead of the initial, as my initial is J. In fancy fonts like the one Carolyn suggests, the letter J often ends up looking like an I, or an F, or even a T. So, I’m having flowers instead!

Here are the three anemones stitched (using raised cross stitch), and the strawberry flower started. I outlined the flower in split stitch, and then worked two layers of satin stitch padding before working the top layer of long and short stitch for the petals.

These are the petals, once complete.

Here are the anemones once they have had their middles stitched in a French knot with one strand of Anchor cotton. The strawberry flower has straight stitch highlights in pale green, and leaves in fishbone stitch. Three French knots finish off the flower in the centre.

Each panel is outlined with tiny chain stitches. Carolyn suggested whipping the chain stitch with gold thread, but I liked the look of the chain stitch as it was, so I left it without the gold highlights.

Now it just needs assembing.

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Carolyn Pearce Home Sweet Home workbox 15: assembling the emery block

Today I have been assembling the little emery block from Carolyn Pearce’s book ‘Home Sweet Home Workbox’. Amazingly, here is the amount of equipment I gathered together, in order to do that:

I didn’t actually use *everything* in the picture, but I did need most of it!! Here is the embroidery ready to be assembled (the piece with the bee on is upside down – only just noticed that!). Also, for those who read my last post about this project, I decided to take some advice and added a few yellow stitches to the bee, to stop him looking more like a vine weevil than a bee  🙂  I’m happier with him now. The rectangles at the bottom of the picture are of thick plastic cut from a ring binder, and quilting wadding.

I stuck the wadding to the plastic with pieces of double sided tape, and then laced each embroidered piece over the plastic, using Perle cotton number 12, as it is really strong.

Here are the pieces finished, with one showing the lacing across the back.

Now the two pieces are ready to be made into the block. Isn’t the bee looking better, now?

The cotton fabric I’ve chosen to line the house box, and some of the ‘smalls’ with, is this pretty green floral quilting fabric. Carolyn’s instructions suggested using green ribbon for the gusset of the emery block, but I couldn’t find any that I liked, so I decided to make a kind of bias binding strip from the green floral fabric (only it is cut straight, to follow the pattern).

Starting at one corner, with 3/8 inch turned under first, I attached the ribbon piece to the front panel (with the bee on it), using glove stitch. It’s sort of like an overcast stitch, but has an  upright stitch and then a slanting stitch in the same position, making it very secure.

This is how it looked when I had attached it all the way round, and slipstitched the short ends together where they overlapped.

Then I attached the back panel in the same way. If you plan to make one of these, I’d suggest attaching the front panel first and then the back one, as I did, as it was much more  difficult to make the stitching on the back panel neat, as the block became rather stiff the more complete it became! I left a small opening on the fourth side, to add the emery powder. It would have been easier if I’d have left a rather larger gap, actually. As you can see from the picture, I left the thread attached at this stage.

As I didn’t quite trust the emery powder to stay inside the block and not work its way out of the seams, I poked in a little bit of quilting wadding first, in tiny pieces, to line the cavity. I pushed it in using an empty biro case (note the EMPTY bit – you don’t want to inadvertantly draw on the embroidered panel by mistake!).

Then comes the messy bit – I made a funnel from paper, and taped it together. Then I poked the tip onto the opening, and tipped the emery powder in, a small bit at a time, and tapped the block on the table to make it go into the cavity. Then I stitched the opening closed, with more glove stitch.

This is the block completed, next to my 3 inch stork scissors, to show how tiny this is when it’s finished.

I’m very pleased with how this has turned out. The emery powder seems to be behaving itself and staying inside the block, even though I have tested it by squeezing it, throwing it and generally asking for trouble! And it really does work to help keep my needles clean and free of burrs, when I poke them in and out of the ribbon gusset.

Now on to the scissor keeper……

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