When we visited the quilt shop in Florida, I purchased a few fat quarters with a dollhouse-sized print in mind. I have a fairly large fabric stash, but most of the patterns are too out of scale for a 1:12 dollhouse, so I haven’t been able to use them.
I came home with six different fat quarters. I had one specific project in mind. But I’ve got others in the offing, hence six different fat quarters. Actually, seven. But the other one is not for minis. I just liked it.
A couple of years ago, Linda, one of my generous readers, sent me a box full of all sorts of mini goodness. Among the items included were several kits from the House of Miniatures. (They are no longer made, but you can usually find some of them on eBay.)
I had my eye on a Chippendale chair kit, but I didn’t care for the blue fabric that came with the kit and I didn’t have anything on hand that would work. So I shelved the idea for a while. Then I came across an older post on Otterine (Brae’s blog, which I’ve spoken of before) where she chronicled the construction of that same chair, covered in a pretty fabric, for one of her dollhouses.
It was no use. That chair was back in my brain and I was going to have to go for it.
I decided to work on it yesterday while I was waiting for the windshield replacement technician to arrive. I didn’t follow Brae’s tutorial, though I probably should have! I started not long before the glass guy arrived and I was still working on it long after he left. It is fiddly, painstaking work – as are all miniatures, I suppose – and I made a few mistakes along the way that needed correcting. And, as often seems to happen with me and kits, the kit included two right rear legs instead of a left and right leg, so I had to try and modify the leg to make it work.
I seem to attract these things. There’s a post somewhere on this blog about a bookcase I built for my upstairs studio that came with two left sides. That was a pain in the tush.
Anyway, I managed to make the chair. I think if I had another kit here and could construct a second chair immediately, it would turn out better because I learned a few things along the way. Don’t look too closely. There are flaws here and there. Brae seems to do these things effortlessly, though I’m sure she could tell a story or two.
Here it is:
The studio needed something along the wall on the right and I had long thought about a chair or a sofa. Caroline works on projects here. She crafts. She doesn’t always want to use the desk chair or the stool.
That cabinet on the wall was also made from a House of Miniatures kit, by the way. But, after examining it from my blogging chair, I worried that it might fall on Caroline’s head while she was ensconced in the chair.
So I moved it. (If only it was this easy to move things in real life!)
Better. Now I just have to fix that rug.
As frustrating as it often was, I was rather chuffed at the end result. I kept carrying the chair over to Don while he was trying to take care of all the arrangements to master and duplicate his new CD, thrusting it in his face, with a “Look what I made!!”
HoM kit instructions are, for the most part, very clear and easy to follow. When I ran into trouble it was solely because I had misread some instruction or other. When that happened, I cursed loudly and started over again.
I want one for the den here at Mockingbird Hill Cottage. If only I could tweak my nose and make it happen!
It was a good project for me yesterday, on a day where I needed to occupy my mind with something positive and creative.
Happy Saturday.
Sweet!
Thanks, Carolyn Marie!
A beautiful chair for Caroline. I love the material choices. Doris
Thank you, Doris!
I love it! The ‘upholstery’ material is just perfect. My goodness, you are clever. Aren’t Brae’s tutorials wonderful? Well, she’s pretty wonderful too – she has gone out of her way many a time to answer my mini questions about different projects. At the local mini show last September, I found a couple of the HoM kits for only a few dollars. Now I am inspired to get building. Great job!
Her tutorials are just the best, so detailed and with so much information. I’ve been shy about asking her questions, but now I know she doesn’t mind answering them, I’ll be braver next time!
Have fun with your kits, Barbara!
Love it, and the fabric choice….you did a terrific job. It’s too bad that those kits don’t get the right parts included, I bet there’s many frustrated buyers out there.
Especially when the kit is no longer being made, as in this case!
Love it!
Thank you, Heather!
Claudia, it turned out so great! Love the fabric and you know Caroline will spend hours in that great chair. I need to hang a shelf and wish it were as easy as moving the one in the doll house. Glad you had success and something to occupy your mind.
hugs,
Linda
It helped a lot, Linda.
Cute…hope Caroline likes it…has she said anything yet? Pet peeve of mine….when kits of any kind or size, don’t have the right parts. So maddening! Enjoy your day! ;)
I haven’t heard a peep out of Caroline, Donnamae!
You did an excellent job and your fabric definitely looks better! I’ve made up some of those kits before an they are very fiddly.
Very fiddly, indeed!
Good job! I think it turned out really good! Caroline is one lucky lady.
Thank you, Kathy!
I am so glad, Claudia, that you made the chair. I have been collecting this furniture kits and have assembled several pieces. I have 3 or four chairs that I will share with my daughter. The instructions are pretty easy to follow; I just have pay very close attention. I have one piece that I assembled backwards so I used alcohol the dissolve the glue so that I can place the piece correctly. Now, you can scan the template pieces to get a pattern to make the next chair. If you follow http://cinderellamoments.com, Carolyn has a very nice tutorial on making a wingback chair using the kit pattern as her frame. I’d like to see you do it. I haven’t assembled mine because I haven’t decided on the fabric or where I will use the chair. Great job.
Oh, good to know, Ann. I’ll go check that out!
Great job and, I’m sure, very therapeutic.
Very helpful, I must say.
Quick help me ~ I am swooning big time! Love the chair and the fabric. I want one in full human size too :-)
Big Texas Hugs,
Susan and Bentley
Thanks so much, Susan. I know you love that shade of green!
I am working on a dollhouse kit with my 11 year old granddaughter. We gave it to her for Christmas last year. She and I often look at Caroline’s house for inspiration, and just now looking at that gorgeous little chair we both squealed with delight! Claudia, you did an amazing job on it! We just love it!
That’s a high compliment from you and your granddaughter, Lily. Thank you!
It’s gorgeous Claudia…I want one my size too….
Thank you, Nancy!
you are so very humble. That chair is amazing ( and I cheated and looked very closely) Caroline is one lucky lady!!!!
You cheated! That’s okay. As long as it didn’t look badly done!
The chair is so charming…and you did a beautiful job with it!
Thank you, Linda! These teeny tiny creations are tricky, indeed!
Adorable! I really love that you customized it with your own fabric. I also really admire that you had the patience to finish such a fiddly project!
Hugs,
JILL
Hi Jill! I’ve missed you! I hope all is well with you, my friend. I think of you often.
And thank you for your kind words. You are such a gifted miniaturist, so I am very humbled and flattered that you like it!
I love the chair…everything about it! I could never do something like that; my stiff fingers won’t allow it at this age although I was really good when younger about working with little things and was an ‘expert’ sort of ‘gluer’ when it came to repairing broken stuff (also, when my eyes were younger and better than they are now!). Mother always had a cleaning person (I say that green with envy because I’ve never myself been so lucky!) and, I swear, they were continually breaking things and Mom would never get all her little collectibles and souvenirs/mementoes out of their way ahead of time to make cleaning easier for them (and the cleaning person is usually needing to work pretty fast). So, I was the go-to for trying to put the pieces back together on all matters of broken pottery/porcelain, etc. No more, though; arthritis got to my hands. You’re lucky you can still have such dexterity…it’s not like that’s some flat, boxy chair; yours has a lot of tucks and rolls, no? Bravo! Yes, I want one for my human house!
Even with some dexterity, this stuff is difficult. My fingers sometimes feel too big when I’m trying to work on this scale. Thanks, Vicki!
Claudia, you’re so good about answering comments and I don’t know if you’ll still get this one but I wanted to point out a little discovery I’ve made which puts a smile on my face every single time.
Google ‘giant panda cam’ and watch the giant panda mommy cradle and tend to her teeny-tiny newborn panda at the National Zoo. (There are two views of her ‘den’ and I like one camera better than the other; sometimes the keepers really zoom in the camera because they’re monitoring the cub, too, so you can get a really close-up view of this adorable baby which looks almost unformed and like it should still be in the womb.) Mommy had twins and one only made it a few days but this remaining cub (a boy) seems to be robust and, although born hairless, is now appearing to grow some hair/fur. She licks him constantly to coax urinating and defecating because he’s not at a stage to prompt that in himself, from all I’ve read. You’ll see she’s in a tiny space but that’s apparently to replicate a den in the wild which pandas sometimes make in something as small as a hollowed-out tree trunk. I guess she’ll stay like this for a couple of months. She’s separated from the viewing public right now and although this den looks well lit, it’s actually infra-red or very low light for the keepers, so she actually IS in a darkened den like what she’d find for herself in the wild. She doesn’t really eat and drink during this time although I think she’s been out ONCE to relieve herself; it’s an odd kind of hibernation, maybe designed to never leave the baby alone at least for very long. The baby is really squawky! Turn your volume up and hear all kinds of animal sounds from them! And when Mommy is sleeping, you can hear her snoring. It can put you to sleep if she’s really ‘out’ but it seems the baby is so squirmy and she’s trying hard to keep him warm, that she’s mostly cat-napping. She cradles him in her big paws and sometimes seems to have him nesting under her chin. She’ll turn over and there he is; she sits upright quite a lot. I’m finding whenever I have a spare moment, I tune in to watch; sometimes it can put me to sleep, too. The thing goes 24/7 so, if I’m up in the night, I’ll check in for a few minutes. It’s fascinating to watch her in action with the baby. I feel grateful to be able to see something like this! Can’t wait til he’s bigger; just a roly-poly, adorable little baby bear!
I’ll definitely watch it. The mother gave birth to two pandas and, as I heard it, rejected one of them. I guess that’s normal with pandas, but I feel sorry for the rejected baby.
Oh, gosh, I only meant for it to cheer you a little (I’ve found it to be a good diversion)! I’d read a few diff early reports about these recent panda births but then more in depth on the zoo website. The mama did seem to go for the fittest cub initially and panda moms for some reason have difficulty caring for two cubs if they have twins…it’s not just her…but what it came down to is that she wasn’t liking the ‘swaps.’ The human team would swap out one baby for another to give each of them some time in a incubator, take weight and measurements and supplement feed with human/puppy formula but Mama wasn’t liking their intrusion so, on the last go’round, they wound up with the lower-weight one and could no longer do the swaps…and they did everything they could but the tiny cub was having aspiration/respiratory issues. The team was really devastated. So, it was a case of Mom not showing ultimately a preference for one cub over the other during the swap-outs (i.e., whichever cub the team would leave her with, she was giving her full attention to)…she just finally put her foot down and said, ‘stop disturbing me.’ Which seems understandable. But they really had no choice because of the history of panda moms having the inability to care for two at one time. Complicated. When you consider that my cousin, in younger days and being less responsible, actually bred the dog (controversial subject, but even with a purebred dog, my opinion is that there are already too many dogs in the world and not enough people to care for them) and the dog had 17 puppies of which 13 or 14 survived in the dog’s loving care. (Although, wow, I remember how exhausted that dog-mom was and, after all, she only had so many ‘titties’ for nursing!)
Okay, enough of the pandas; just keeping fingers crossed that this little guy continues to thrive! I’ve never been ‘into’ panda bears that much or known much about them but I’ve found this latest thing intriguing. Last night, they switched out one of the cams to show who I think is Mom’s other cub…I think she’s like age 2 and by a different papa…out in the part of the zoo where zoo visitors can watch her. I’m actually not even really into zoos in general but it does sound like pandas would go into extinction if China and the U.S. didn’t have a partnership for trying to ‘grow them’ in captivity.
My cousin’s dog was an Irish Setter. Haven’t seen one of those in a long, long time.
xo
We had an Irish Setter when I was growing up. They’ve been overbred, I fear. That might be why we don’t see them as often as we used to.
With her knitting & crocheting supplies in the basket next to her new chair, I am sure Caroline will be thrilled. Looks like the perfect place to work on a cold and/ or rainy day. You did a wonderful job on all the little tucks and rolls. I would like everything in that room in my house!!
Me too. I’d love a room like that – just for me – in my house! Thanks, Chris.
Wow, I really like that chair! The fabric was a good choice for it. I do hope Carolina thanks you for your hard work.
Have a safe holiday weekend!
Deb
I have yet to hear a thank you, Debbie, but something tells me Caroline is away for the holiday weekend.
Well done, Claudia! I knew you could do it! I build a lot of scratch furniture, but I still love HoM kits. They are fun to work with. Keep going!
I’ll keep plugging away at it, Casey! Thank you so much for your kind words! Making furniture from scratch is something I can only aspire to!
Great chair! I have a wing chair in my library/guest room and it is a smallish one, which is good because I am a quite smallish person. HOWEVER, it is not a great reading chair. IMHO a reading chair needs to have just the right pitch/angle (whatever you call it) to the back so that you are just slightly pitched backwards. This is quite helpful if your intention is to doze off at some point, which is usually my intention. Wing chairs (this one anyway) do not seem angled for dozing off. I think that they might be angled for conversation. I prefer dozing off. I do jam a pillow at my back and use a short footstool, but it still is not quite right and I wake up with back or neck aches. I actually find myself doing most of my reading sitting at the kitchen table, upright. I still can doze off there too, but not quite as quickly.
Sounds like nodding off while reading is a priority, Laura! I totally understand. I’ve been known to nod off with book in hand.
Ha! Ha! Reading and napping are quite intertwined. of course the glass of wine sipped while doing the first, often leads to the second.
Yes, indeed it does, Laura!
Hi Claudia, I think that making this chair proved to be very therapeutic for you after all of the trauma during this past week. You have chosen a lovely print for this chair and I am certain that Caroline will Love it as much as you do! :)) I love the mix of color and pattern and textures that you have in this room.
Well Done Claudia, and now that you have gotten your feet wet with this chair kit, it will be of great interest to see what project you will decide to do next! :D
I have a few other HOM kits – including the matching settee…hmmm. Thanks so much, Elizabeth! And you’re right, it was very therapeutic and necessary.
Well, if you did something wrong, I sure can’ tell. It’s absolutely adorable and I love the fabric.
Thank you, Tammy! I dithered on the fabric choice, but I’m glad I chose this print.
Wing chairs are not only good for knitting, reading and needlework, but they cradle your head when you nod off, making a fairly comfortable napping chair too! I really like the scale of the fabric you chose for your mini-wing chair. The overall effect is so design savvy.
Thanks, Wendy! It’s all about the scale and what seems like it would work perfectly is often too big for miniatures.
I’d like to take a nap in that chair right now!
I totally understand what you mean about scale in miniatures. I sew doll clothes for 18″ dolls for my daughters’ dolls (and for mine too!) so I also have to collect prints that are of the correct scale
Well, I think you did a marvelous job! I was lucky in that my first upholstered kit was a Millie August couch. Had I done the HoM chair kit first, I would never have tried another upholstered mini! It’s not an easy kit. Well done! The fabric is perfect for it!
I cursed like a sailor, Brae! I made foolish mistakes, the patterns were a bit off at times. But I’m fairly happy with it.
I always say, If it weren’t for all the swearing, how would you know how much fun you were having?!!! :D
Spoken like a veteran!