DO COME INSIDE..............the Dolls'house

 Today there were visitors here to see the Doll's House,  and what made it so special they were visiting Stratford from England and have previously visited in January 2010, having seen the dolls house then,  asked if they could come back again.     Rosemary and Derek it was lovely to see you once more and I was honoured that you felt the Dolls House was worthy of a second visit. (hope you get to read this on your return to England.)

'My blog friends I invite you to come for a visit.

Come in, Rosie, the maid is holding the door open for you-

Rosie the household's Irish maid is another Pamela Jackson doll, her room is in the attic we may see that on a later visit, but meanwhile step into the hall way.

Entering the hall, the floor is polished wood parquet and the wall paper, an Art Nouveau design which has the suggestion of a William Morris design.  The stair case carpet is deep blue velvet and shows off well the brass stair rods Paul made. The velvet is left over scraps from the recovering the Elders Chairs from St Andrew's Presbyterian Church Coromandel at the time of the church 125th Anniversary.   I did start to stitch a carpet but was taking too long and holding up the building of the house, as the bottom hall had to be completed before the next level could be added.    On the landing is a brass Grandmothers clock, one of three working clocks in the house that are all keeping good time.         The three lights in the hall are all Tulip Wall sconces  replicas of early gas lamps.

On the hall table is a small Doulton pottery jug filled with what appears to be Honesty sead heads, these are in fact the seed heads of one of the Alyssum plants. The little jug which is 1 inch high was brought back from the Doulton Factory in England at the end of WW1 by my Great Uncle Charles Skinner for his sister,Caroline Haworth (My Grandmother) who collected minature jugs and was the smallest jug in her collection.

Down the back of the hall is a dividing door, this is the same as the door in my Grandmother's house and as a child I loved the way the lights came through the coloured glass. Here in the back is where Nanny keeps the pram,  This came as a metal frame and we covered it with black kid leather ( a friend donated her old glove) and it is lined with silk. Looking at my note book I see the pram was done in 1992, it looks as good today as it did then.

 So far I have only completed 1 of the floor rugs, this one is on the upstairs landing and is a Liz Kennedy of Auckland design, intended to be stitched on silk guaze but Stitch in linen to make it a size in keeping with the scale of the house, 1 inch = 1 foot.

We will move into the front parlour and  meet with Sarah and Henry in my next posting,