Update on the living room rug

After crocheting for a couple of weeks, I felt like doing some other needlework. So, after a long time I picked up working on the living room rug. 
After all, the bedroom rug already has one :')

I haven't done a blog about this rug since April 2019 😮 This is how much I'd done back then;

April 5th 2019

Apparently I did make some progress since then, because this is how it looks at the moment:

The finished rug will have a total of 54 (6 x 9) octagons.

Another rug, a key cupboard and a plant ladder

After I'd finished the rug for the bedroom last month I also made one as a birthday gift for my friend Kim.
Due to the Brexit, Corona and/or heavy snowfall it took twice as long for the parcel to arrive, but now I can finally show you ;)

Elizabeth Stitch with Venne cotton 34/2, nr. 3039,
nr. 6003 and nr. 6044.

I also made her this key cupboard from Balsa and a little piece of a carved bamboo hand fan.

I cut the top of four needle pins and used three as hooks for the keys and one as a little doorknob. They are painted black with nail varnish. The hinge is just a single staple :)

This is how the rug looked in daylight (a)

Last but not least; I hadn't showed this etagère or plant ladder yet.
I'd seen a tutorial in the Dutch P&M magazine nr. 170 and thought it would make a nice Christmas gift for Kim. 

I imagine she'll use it for plants and other garden related things, so I tried to give it a weathered look :')
It can just as well be used to display other items e.g. in a shop, so I might make another one for my Italian project :)

A crochet rug for the bedroom

Last week I happen to see some 'mug rug coasters' on Pinterest last week. Some done with macrame, some were crocheted. I like the look of them and thought it might be nice idea for the cottage bedroom.

So I put together three balls of yarn and looked for a new crochet stitch that would be fun to learn. My choice: the Elizabeth Stitch (also called the mini bean stitch). For a tutorial click: here.
I liked learning this stitch, it's easy to do (though it would be easier with a single thread instead of three ^^) and I like the criss cross look of it. 

Although I really liked the colours and the end result, I thought it was just a bit too coarse (I think) for a 1:12 scale rug, so I started another one with Venne cotton 34/2. Was worried a bit that it would be too thin, compared to the first one, at the start.

But it turned out to be perfect for a rug :)

Adding fringes or not, is the question. I wanted to do them with the turquoise Venne, but now I'm not so sure anymore. I might just leave it like this :')

A little Christmas scene, part 2

Here's the next part of this years Christmas scene.

A sheet of Balsa 1,5 cm, carved with cocktail picks,
because I was lazy ;)

Painted it dark at first, hoping that would show the 'nails'
better after painting it white. 

It didn't (a)

I removed some bristles at the bottom and the wooden
stand and bend the wire to get a smaller tree.

I thought wrapping bark around the wire at the bottom of
the tree ould look more realistic. It was an annoyance
to glue them however because the bark would fall
to pieces as soon as I tried to bend it :')

Tutorial for the stand by AkameruKawaii.

I've painted the trunk to cover the excess of glue
and to fill all the gaps ^^

And of course I've painted the tree to
get rid of the 'snow'. It's still nearly
hits the invisible ceiling but it fits ;)

I used this idea by Elizabeth to make stocking.

I didn't have stickers, so I used a linoleum floor tile I had
and printed some templates.

I cut the top part and didn't glue that onto the fabric,
though I wrapped the fabric around it at first ...

... to keep the right shape.

Covering them with fabric was a meticulous job :)

Decorating them was fun though.

As was putting some decorations
in place.

Next will probably be
decorating the tree.

A little Christmas scene, part 1

 At this year's last meeting with the miniature club we wanted to do something for Christmas. It was hard to come up with something, or to be precise, choose something from all the wonderful idea's and tutorials Pinterest provides ;)

Meanwhile I unpacked my box with Christmas miniatures and was reminded how many things I had made in previous years but never displayed. So I decided to make a little diorama to display some of those miniatures ^^

This gorgeous scene inspired me. I'm not sure but I think it was made by Tatjana Sjmeleva.

Four years ago, when I'd just started at making miniatures, I had a similair idea of making a Christmas scene but never made it beyond the walls ;)

So, I went with that one. Broke half of the walls of, gave it a layer of Gesso ...

... and painted everything with a mixture of white acrylic paint, wood glue, saw dust and bird sand.

I filled one of the windowopenings and found a sturdy linoleum tile as base for the flooring.

All of this in preparation before meeting and crafting with Jolinda and Monique.
That afternoon I worked on making the panelling. Later that evening I started with a fire place from cartboard but didn't like it the next morning ;)

So, I made another one, painted it with Gesso (primer) and started adding 'cobblestones' from egg carton.

I gave it a layer of white acrylic paint, another one with gray (because the egg cart board made it still look a bit yellowish) and two more with white.

The original window had to go, and I found a nice picture to put there instead.
After which I went on with making the curtains :)

With embroidery threads that matched the fabric I made a simple rug.

I want a bigger tree in that corner and maybe make a nice chair ...

... but I love how things are coming together so far :)

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 :)