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,

CAITLIN'S OWL BAG

Last year at Junior Embroideries we made owl bags. Each of the Adult tutors decide what  type of stitch was going to be on each side of the bag. Grandma chose the black work owl and we got to decide what pattern to use, with some guidance of course,  then a second one using stitches we .already knew. Mary Garlick chose the jigsaw owl. which was lots of fun and had a painted background..   Maree B. designed the owl with the felt parts on it which was fun to work with.  Maree took all the finished owls home with her and made them into wonderful bags like this one. They also have a cute blue, green and purple owl  fabric inner. Grandma as a surprise made the little owl toggles for each us and we got given them along with the finished product on the last day of stitching for the year.

                                                               Caitlin

A VISIT TO THE DOLLS' HOUSE

Speaking with my friend Ann recently, she told me she had never seen my dolls' house except for the recent  posting on my blog,'Notes from under the mountain'  Ann has visited us most years  since we moved down here almost 12 years ago, and have to admit I just though like all our Coromandel friends she had seen it. Sorry Ann I will try and share it with you through photos and you can see the real thing later in the year when you next come down. I hope anyone reading this blog will enjoy it too. This is the dolls' house in the middle of the living room, moved there after our front room was flooded in early December.

Paul started building the Dolls' house for me early in 1991, after research about dolls' houses I settled for this drawing of Springvale Station homestead in Hawke's Bay to be the inspiration,I certainly did not want a square box.  We planned it 1/12 scale (1 inch to 1 foot) set in the period of the beginning of the 1900's, and to be front opening like the old English dolls' houses.  The house is 51 x 22 inches and to the top of the turret is 43 inches.

 Some years later we did visit Springvale during a garden tour in the Tikokino District in Central Hawke's Bay. I have called my house "Summerlee" after an early family home in NZ, that is no longer standing, and I am very proud of what Paul built for me. The roof is cedar shingles and there are over 3,000 each glued on separately. The build of the turret  did include a few interesting words !! it was certainly the hardest piece to build.

Living in the house is Henry and Sarah Barker, Henry is just the ordinary ready made dolls house china doll which I dressed and gave a wig to., while Sarah is a beautiful doll  a Pamela Jackson doll kit.,  ( her doll's are really lovely and I am lucky to own several of them)

Their children are  Emma, Caroline and baby John, I just realised I have no photo of baby John, but will do something about that before we visit the nursery.

Next posting we will go inside the house and start exploring the rooms.

 I look forward to sharing with you.

LITTLE CHRISTMAS BIRDS

During the lovely relaxing few days we spent with my sister and her husband, these little birds were my sewing project, they are from a patern I had made some years ago but had not used before. My sister's family are all gathering down in the Sounds for Christmas and her daughter Vicki has decided on a Pacific Theme for decorations and the meal, which is in keeping with Christmas here falling during the summer. Snowmen .Reindeer etc are banned there this year down there, Joan had been busy with some NZ designed fabric and had made small padded ornaments, here is a few of them, mostly showing NZ birds.

As you can see I made these little birds in soft natural colours so they would show up on the Christmas tree and be in keeping with the other decorations planned however since then I have made two more in Christmas colours of red and white and these are going to wing their way across to America this week.

I plan to leave them unstuffed, so they will slip in an envelope and go as a card which hopefully might get them there for Christmas. If anyone would like the pattern, send me a message I am happy to share.

TURKEY DAY

To all my friend celebrating Thanksgiving day ... I hope you have a great day with family and friends.

We all have so much to be thankful for even if we are living in a different country.

Hope you like my Turkeys - I remembered I had these photos of two notice board displays I did at a gathering some years ago, they were done in paper sculpture quite large and lots of fun to make. 

Must dash.