If you are into dollhouses, you’ll know that it isn’t always easy to find things suitable for a Tudor house. But this week, I had an email from a customer of mine, with images of her beautiful Tudor dollhouse stitching to look at – photographed in the most amazing 12th scale doll’s house.
This customer (who’d prefer to be anonymous, so I’ll call her SB), has bought many of my kits over the years. She has several doll’s houses, but this Tudor one is her favourite, and the biggest! She explains the size of the house by saying that four poster beds are quite large, so she felt that the rooms needed to be large too, to accommodate them…and it just grew. She designed the house herself, and her husband had it made for her as a special birthday present. I think it’s a really interesting design, and looks just like a ‘real’ house.
Here’s the master bedroom, with a four poster bed in it. SB made the doll in this room from a kit, but the clothes were made by her from scratch. She also made the floor cushion on the left of the picture from scratch. The rug on the floor is one of my kit designs, called ‘Natalia’. There’s also a bolster pillow on the bed, made from one of my kits called ‘Eleanor’. The instructions for this kit show you how to make the end tassels, that are only half an inch long!
Here is the main hall. It’s a magnificent piece of miniature construction. I love the panelling! At each side of the hall are Cluny tapestries – the one on the left is the ‘Cluny Merchant’, and the one on the right is the ‘Cluny Maid’. The needlepoint kits for these have 22 count canvas in, and all the materials to complete the wallhangings, including the wooden poles. The carpet is called ‘Elizabeth’, and is stitched on 18 count canvas. The other stitching in this room is from a book that SB owns.
In a detail of this room, you can see the very well-dressed man on the left hand side.
This is another bedroom, with a half tester bed. SB stitched the blackwork covers and cushions for this bed to her own designs. The rug in the background is one of my designs, but I no longer sell this one. It goes really well in this room, though.
SB also sent me this picture of a room from another doll’s house that she has. The doll in this room is having a well-earned cup of tea. The ‘Katrina’ carpet is in front of the table, which is set out with the tea things. The needlework stand, again, is a design of mine but I no longer sell this particular one.
SB obviously loves her doll’s houses, and has spent many, many hours making them fantastically detailed. Although a doll’s house is never really finished (like a real house), these look almost there, to me!
I always love seeing what people have done with the doll’s house needlepoint kits that they buy from me, so if you have any pictures of your stitching in your doll’s house, please email them to janet@janetgranger.co.uk
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