Embroidery

I joined the Petitpointers yahoo group and I feel quite at home there! I have embroidered as long as I can remember, probably starting in primary school aged about 7 or 8. Neither of my sisters understood it, but I just loved it.

This was my last ever effort in full scale. 136 colours, 36 count, about 20"x16" (50x40cm)

Then when I put my dollshouse together over 20 years ago now, I needed rugs for the rather bare rooms.

The first one, probably from the P&M magazine early 1990s, 17x20cm

For the hallway 9x13cm

Afghan rug for the bedroom 11x14cm

Baluchi carpet for the dining room 13x17cm

All of the rugs except the first one are from the patterns in Making Miniature Oriental Carpets and Rugs by Meik and Ian McNaughton from 1998.

I much prefer working in silk (DMC mostly) on 36 or higher count and the patterns were for 24 count. I just added more blocks in the middle. That does mean that the edges need to be modified too and you have to work from the corners to the middle. The dining room rug pattern was for 2x3 blocks (the octagons) and I needed 4x5 to make the right kind of impact in the room. 

P&M magazine oct/nov 2002! Started it in 2007 or 2008 though!

The latest one is the hunting scene for the firescreen. I've got the wood, now I just need to get all the machinery out (table saw, scroll saw and lathe, hurray I love my tools!) and cut it all and turn the post. This project is spread over 4 pages, and the only part about the embroidery is the pattern and the last paragraph, which also includes how to fit it into the screen! It really assumes you know what you're doing. A nice project to finish in the summer holidays starting Friday 20th July!