Miniature Kniting Shop

This is a little knitwear shop I made, complete with the old lady who runs it.

 I enjoyed making knitted blankets and shawls and this seemed a good way to display them.

3-shuttle tatting

I very much like Teiko Fujito's patterns, and one of the ones I often make is her 3-shuttle pattern.

This is a version of it, worked in very fine thread and with fewer repeats to make it fit the lid of this little box.



Star Shawl

This is a very simple shawl, but I think it is a pretty one. The pattern forms a star in the centre with lines radiating out from it. And I have added a very basic edging. You can see a much fancier shawl with a similar centre in 'Victorian Lace Today'.

I made this shawl in a 90% silk 10% cashmere yarn which means it does not need blocking after washing, just shaking and pulling into shape. It is the shawl I grab when I am going into the garden in summer, but it is not quite warm enough out there (which in the British climate tends to be most of the time!)

More dollshouse dolls

Some more photos from my albums today.

Before I had a dollshouse I keppt my dolls on a couple of shelves in a bookcase. I cut pieces of plywood to fit and covered them with dollshouse paper. I cut out and added doors and windows and because the 'windows' looked onto the wood at the back of the bookcase I cut bits of photos out of magazines and stuck them behind the windows to suggest a view from the windows.

You can see how effective the 'windows' were.

Here you can see some of the pictures my husband drew for me. they were on cartidge paper so I just stuck picture frame on to them and cut them out. A dab of blutack keeps them on the wall.

The tea set was given me by a Japanese friend when she moved back to Japan. She was a keen, and very able china painter, with her own kiln and she found a miniature tea set and painted it for me.

And here is the cook in her kitchen.

More another time!



Kitty Pics

I couldn't make up my mind what to show you this morning. So here are the cats. There always seem to be more pictures of Tigger than of Ginger because Tigger is a cat who sits still, looks at things and thinks about them, but Ginger is always in a hurry and not about to hang about while I fiddle with the camera.

Tatted Baby Bonnets

The old tatting books are full of the prettiest little tatted baby bonnets. These are of no practical use today but are fun to make so I got a baby doll and dressed her to show one off.

And here is a different tatted bonnet.

And a little pair of baby booties in tatting.

Totally impractical, but such fun!

Cover for ereader

My husband recently gave me an ereader and it is wonderful. My eyesight was never very good and now it is a good deal worse so I have been unable to read normal print for a number of years. I get talking books from several charities and the RNIB have even started to produce giant print (24 point) books, for all of which I am very grateful. But giant print books are big and heavy and come in multiple volumes for even a short book. None of it is the same as reading an ordinary book for oneself.

So the ereader, which lets me enlarge the print without making the book any bigger or heavier, is an almost unbelievable pleasure. In the photo above, the text is not even at its biggest, there is an even larger setting.

My one niggle is the plasticy cover that is all (as far as I know) that is available for my model. So I decided to try to achieve a leather cover.

I bought a leather book cover kit. It was intended for a Bible so was a bit big and aimed at a much thicker book. It came ready sewn so I unpicked the stitching along 2 sides, cut it down, shortened the strap, made holes with an embroidery stiletto and  resewed it by hand. Then I stained and finished it.

It is not perfect. A purpose designed kit would have been better, but I have not been able to find one. No doubt they will become available as ereaders become more popular. But it protects my precious ereader and does for now.