The living room rug - April

It's been awhile since my last blog. I haven't been able to work on miniatures for a couple of weeks so I thought I start motivating myself by showing the progress I've made on the rug for the living room. The progress I've made was mainly done in the beginninh of March; I haven't done any cross stitching since then :')
Still the differece is visible and makes me want to continue ;)

20 februari

More octagons being filled

The living room rug - February

A month ago, well five weeks to be exact, I started cross stitching a rug for the living room.
Even though I've worked on a lot of other miniatures as well, I've made some progress I'd like to share :)
If only to keep me motivated to keep going so I can post an update next month ;)

This was on Januari 16th
(4 days after I started ^^)

A rug for the living room

I alway got the impression that after building a house or room, and decorating it, the fun part began. Well, guess what ... I find it the hardest part so far :')
So many chooses, about colour and style, decicions to make, what to do when. I've known from the beginning that I want to have rugs in most of the rooms of the cottages. Lots of work, but I like cross stitching and I have splenty of time before a room is done.
But ... to know the colours for the rug, I'd need to know the style of the room, or at least the colour scheme, and I still don't know (for sure ^^). Same with the size of the rug; I know the furniture I want to place against the walls, but I'm still in doubt about the couch/armstairs.
And so I keep running around in circles; should the rug fit the couch cushions and the curtains or the other way around and so on ;)

My pinterest board with (designs of) rugs and carpets alone has 65 pins and I'm sure I have more (a)
Well, browsing again saturday evening I've found these needlepoint charts, designs by Anna-Carin Betzén, based on full-scale rugs. Her designs are all 1:48 and 1:144 scale, but I looked anyway :)

© Anna-Carin Betzén

I noticed an Afghan rug, circa 1900. It has 49 by 73 stitches and uses only 4 colours. While I was wondering how it would look in other colours I saw a note, saying: "Add more repeats for a larger rug. Many afghan rugs have much smaller octagons, so with more repeats this design could easily work in larger scales."

So I selected DMC embroidery threads in four colours, fabric I already had (might be 16 stitches?)  and started right away :) I figured beginning in one corner would give me an idea of the size and how many times I would have to repeat the octagons. 

When I'd done the top row of the pattern it was 4,5 cm, so I might have to repeat the original designs twelve times :')

Since I didn't want a repeat of the edges everytime I spent an hour copying and pasting in Paint untill I had a design I liked. I can alway decide to add or skip octagons when I've furnished the living room of the cottage :)

Only bad thing about starting right away; I had choosed the colours to match a scrap of the wall paper I used for the living room (left). It matched great in the evening but a lot less in the morning, and then I discovered it wasn't even the right wall paper to begin with (that's the one on the right ^^).

Anyway, I like the colours - and I didn't want to start over :P - so I'll just keep these and we'll see if it will match the living room.

Of course, once started I can never stop until the design and colour scheme starts showing, so ... this is the progress so far :)

Bits and bobs, or, what I've been up to in Oktober.

It has been a bit hectic the previous weeks. As well inside as outside of my head :')

I'd started on the first piece of furniture for the living room; the
bookcase from the first book of Julie Warren.
(Though I have my own crafting room with everything I could
need, I do most of my crafting here in the living room ^^)

After I was almost done with the base I needed
to take a break because unfortunately wood-
working is a bit to straining physically atm.

So, mainly, I've been cross stitching and made a couple of new cushions.

I wanted to make a couple of Halloween related cushion for my
Etsy store, but I started a bit too late and only got to finish this
one. Maybe next year I can do more to sell :)

Last year I've made a series of Santa cushions, and this year
I'm working on three snowmen :)

I also finished the three geometrical cushions I've scross
stitched in September. I need to make a few pretty pictures
and then they be listed in Etsy.

  

But, I didn't have a couch that I could use as a prop for taking those photo's, so needed to remedy that ;)

This tutorial got me started on a simple couch but I didn't like
the straight sides, so I carved and sanded untill the arms had
a rounded shape :)

I covered the back part and the arms (partly) with fiberfill,
and tried to figure out how to go from there.

I used flat head pins and texile glue to attach the fabric. They
easily went through the Balsa wood and I could snipe
them off before covering that part with fabric.

Three extra pins gave my couch the tufted look I wanted.

Hopefully I can finish the couch in the next couple of days, but I had to tidy my diner table this weekend because we had a little party last night. As soon as I'd put the half finished couch away, Harry claimed it to get very comfortable. Before the first guest arrived he had already started on a bottle of elf-made wine!
I guess I can wait another day before I continue with the couch ;)

A bunch of things

Life has been so chaotic this last month that I've spend nearly as much time in the mini world as I would have liked.
But still, I've managed to work on some crafts, so I thought I just squeezed it all in one blog (a) Maybe that way I can finally get back to the cottage ghe ghe

After I'd made the Hogwarts trunk I had some fun with these marbles from De Knikkerprins (word play on the frog prince) and made some fisherman floats.
 

Then I started making cushions, which turned out to be a new addiction ^^
First I made some Halloween themed cushions for my Etsy store. To my surprise they were sold within 48 hours o.O
 

  

  

I started making a dress for Sophie from the Quill shop ...
 

... but got distracted by the mold I'd bought at Georgia Marfels' at the fair in Rijswijk. So I had an enjoyable afternoon making Gingerbread Man Cookies ;)

Being in the Christmas mood by then I made some cute Santa cushions, on even finer embroidery mesh, which are in my Etsy store since yesterday.

Switching back to Halloween, I've made  a smoked filled globe with spider. Total length 8 cm.
It's based on this 1:1 tutorial.
 

And last but not least; we've had two afternoons with our crafts group. We started a macrame cushion the first time, and worked on walls and window last wednesday. I finished the walls the next days on my own. The next time we will work on something new for this roombox together.

Fair in Rijswijk - fall edition :)

Today I went to the fair in Rijswijk again, for the fourth time in a row, and I'd had a wonderful time
Again I could get a ride with Jolinda, and we arrived at a quarter past nine. While Jolinda went through the back entrance to join the Minidoor team, I got in through the front of course and had to wait till the fair opened at ten o'clock.

In the train back I discovered that I'd forgotten to take photo's while at the fair, but I guessed that would have been the seen pictures I showed you in earlier blogs about Rijswijk ^^
So, let me just show you the many pretties I bought. I have to make new listings for my Etsy store soon because I'm totally broke lol

My precious xD

For new crochet projects

Very nice embroidery fabric and special needles

Already thinking about Christmas xD

Couldn't resist them. 1 euro each. Will find a purpose.

Never worked with a mold, so ... And more gorgeous fabric.

Christmas fabric and the black for new Halloween cushions?

 

Finally I can start making flowers (a) and some nice kits.

And last but not least, treasures from Georgia Marfels!

Very hard to choose but I love this Cornish Pixie <3

Besides looking at all those wonderful miniatures at the fair, it is always great to see familiair faces, met new people, either from (web)shops of from FB groups.
Today I enjoyed meeting Wendy, Stefan, Louise, Georgia, Thea, Anja and many more. And it was great getting to know Esther (All 4 dolls) in person after all the FB messages :)

So, I feel like a very happy, exhausted, but grateful person!

Het Zwadderich wandtapijt / The Slytherin tapestry week 3

Aan twee patronen tegelijk borduren gaat natuurlijk twee keer zo langzaam. Dus is de vooruitgang waarschijnlijk enkel voor mij goed zichtbaar en leuk om te zien, maar ik vind het fijn om af te wisselen.

Doing two cross stitching patterns at the same time goes twice as slowly. So the progress is probably only fun to watch, and visible to my, but I like to alternate them.

Week 2

 

Week 3

Klaar met de tekst, dus nu beginnen met de slang :)

Finished the text, so now I can start with the snake :)

Week 2

Week 3

Ik was deze week veel tijd kwijt met het vinden van de juiste manier en de beste kleuren voor de veren die ik op de deurmat wilde borduren. Het borduren van de veer bleek zelfs nog tijdrovender te zijn. Gelukkig bijna klaar met de eerste en waachijnlijk zal de volgende wat makkelijker gaan. Hoop ik :')

Spend a lot of time looking for the right way and colours for the feathers I want on the doormat and stitching it was even more time-consuming. But almst done with the first one and hopefully the next one will be easier :')

Het Zwadderich wandtapijt / The Slytherin tapestry week 2

Zoals gezegd, een update van m'n borduurwerk. Aangezien ik ook tussendoor aan de deurmat voor de winkel werk, heb ik die ook maar gelijk meegenomen :)

As I've told you, here's an update on my embroidery. Because I also work on the door mat for the shop, I included those photo's too :)

Week 1

 

Week 2

Deze week niet zoveel geborduurd als de vorige, maar ik ben dan ook best wat tijd bezig geweest met het herschrijven van een nieuw hoofdstuk voor mijn verhaal. De kleuren vind ik erg mooi zo samen <3

Not done as much as I did the first week, but I spend quite some time editting a new chapter from my story. I'm really fond of the colours <3

Week 1

Week 2

Ik wilde deze week in ieder geval de tekst op de mat afhebben, maar aangezien ik nog steeds de rest van het patroon uit moet werken, ben ik daarna weer verder gegaan met het wandtapijt :)

My goal was to finish the letters on the mat :) Still have to work on the design though, so that's why I continued with the tapestry for the rest of the time.

Het Zwadderich wandtapijt / The Slytherin tapestry week 1

Ik dacht dat het misschien leuk zou zijn om een wekelijkse update te geven van m'n tweede wandtapijt, al is het maar als stok achter de deur :D

I thought it might be nice to give you all a weekly update of my second tapestry, if only to motivate myself :D

Deze foto liet ik een week geleden zien toen ik uitlegde waarom het wapen van Zwadderich mijn volgende borduurproject zou worden.

This is the photo I showed you last week when I explained why the Slytherin shield would become the next one.

En zo ziet het er nu uit. Waarschijnlijk had ik beter nog even de 'y' af kunnen maken (a) maar helaas dook er de afgelopen dagen nog een tweede borduurwerkje op.

And that's what it looks like at the moment. I probably should've finished the 'y' first (a) but unfortunately I got distracted be an other embroidery idea.

Ik bedacht dat de Verenwinkel een deurmat nodig heeft, maar wel eentje met veren er op. Dus heb ik getracht om zelf een patroon te maken.

I figured the Quill Shop needs a door mat, but it should have feathers on it, so I've tried to make my own design, sort of ;)

Terwijl ik nog bezig was met de veren begon ik al met het borduren van de tekst. Hopelijk maakt dat het wat eenvoudiger om de veren verder af te tekenen.

Before the pattern was finished, I started working on it because I thought it would be easier to see where the feathers need to e placed.



En nu maar afwachten welk borduurwerk volgende week het meest is opgeschoten ;)

So, we'll see which as the most progress next week ;)