Stitching Updates...

 

Progress is Progress...

It is Hard to Believe, Dear Readers that it has already been several months since I showed you any progress on the stitching projects! Time has been Flying by and here we are on the brink of Autumn already. I finished the stitching on The Medieval Lord's Tapestry back in early June but neglected to post pictures. Of course it was a while before I completed the hemming of this Tapestry fragment. You might recall that I had expanded the original kit design to use as much of the provided canvas as I possibly could. I left myself Barely enough to hem it properly. 

 

Here you can see the hemmed tapestry. 

In theory these are supposed to hang from rods for display. 

I have not yet added the back lining or the hanging tabs

 to any of these Tapestry "pieces"....

 not being sure what the best method is for my purposes. 

I'm still working on that! 

Meanwhile, you can see them all 

in location in Rose Thorne Cottage, 

the home of Great Aunt Agatha 

(nobody is quite sure Whose Great Aunt she is!) 

and the Little Dreamers.

 

Here is the Lord's Tapestry...

 tucked into the back corner of the bed chamber...

I know it is hard to see it there... 

but this is the way it goes...

Old things left in corners for centuries.....

Who knows where they came form...? 

 

And the other two Tapestry "fragments" 

are around the corner in the little bedroom 

with the Little Dreamers. 

Sorry I have had to use the flash for you to see them. 

This cottage has no electricity... 

but on good days at the right time of year

 I can get great daylight pictures..... 

I will have to work on that!

 

Meanwhile, you might remember I had embarked 

on the labor intensive background stitching

 for the Chinese Dragon Carpet...

 

I worked diligently at it for a while, 

but then other projects started to grab my attention..... 

 I continue to plug away at it every so often... 

and here you can see good progress has been made.... 

this was in the middle of June.... 

with long evenings for stitching.

 

This was the middle of July... 

quite a bit of progress had been made 

on the bottom left corner section.

 

And early August...... 

 

And mid August... 

that corner background nearly completed!

 

But I got a bit distracted by the other incomplete stitching project.... 

The "Our Lady of Czestochowa" tapestry...

 

Do you remember this one? 

It requires diligent focus and extreme patience

 with all the metallic threads (five different colors in two different types)

 and silk threads which tangle incredibly easily.... 

five different colors for these... 

and twelve different "ordinary" cotton thread colors. 

It is a very beautiful design and watching it unfold is very exciting.... 

but it requires constant counting of stitches and rows... 

it is not a project to be rushed and requires good lighting. 

Which is why I remembered to take it out

 before the summer light was too far gone... 

 

Here I have worked more on the baby Jesus's dress... 

the gold threads and silver in his skirt, 

as well as some of the maroon...

 

This is a little closer so you can

 geek out on the glitter if you like!

 

Here I have filled in the background of the Halo for Mary

 and am working on the background which has 

a bunch of "hieroglyphic" figures 

that seem to relate to stories in her life...

 

Here I have been working on the

 "plain" background behind Mary.

 

And lest you think I have nothing to do, Dear Readers,

 I have also embarked on another little "House Box" sewing project... 

the same as the "Home Sweet Home" Cottage project, 

but on a different colored ground.... 

which makes it all really interesting all over again! 

 

I am using a bright coral pink linen this time... 

thinking of "Rose Thorne Cottage" colors....

 

And gosh.... it has me making 

little diamond paned windows again!

 Lots of them!

 

And starting on the rose bush on the front wall.... 

It is interesting to try to figure out 

which threads from the original project

 will work with this color version. 

And I am planning a few different additions

 or alterations to the original design. 

For instance.... the original pink roses

 are too similar to this linen color... 

I think I will need to tweak them a bit!

 But first I have to stitch a whole lot of tiny leaves....

 

And you know how much I love making tiny leaves!

I had so much fun making the first Home Sweet Home.... 

(I called it "Cottontail Cottage")

I just really feel the need to have a small absorbing project

 to carry me through the fraught days ahead in our country. 

 

And yes, I am still stitching away at the background

 on the Chinese Dragon Carpet.

 

It will take a while, Dear Readers, 

But little bit by little bit 

it adds up to a lot of stitching 

and I am making good progress!

The Castle....

 

Next Level Up.....

The Castle, Dear Readers, (Oh how I love my Castle!) as it Normally stands in my crowded small workroom (supposed to be the dining room) in my too small house gets used for storage on top of those lovely towers and inside any room that has yet to be finished. Which at this point is only the two remaining rooms above the newly completed Chapel in the Tower to the left which hides behind The Folly. It is almost impossible to get a good picture of the entire Castle! But now that the Chapel is Completed (!) it is time to Finally move up into the last remaining New territory in the Castle! This is Exciting! What will these rooms be? I hear you ask? Well, the next room up directly above the Chapel is the Ladies' Solar. This word does not mean what we now use it for. In Medieval Times it meant the place to be apart... or "sole" inhabitant... a private space as opposed to the public Great Hall. The Solar came about as the result of the invention of the chimney (sometime in the 1100's), allowing fires to be built in separate spaces and venting the smoke directly to the outside through the wall cavity rather than through the hole in the center of the roof. It contributed tot he "stratification" of society, allowing "some" to be treated better than others. In general a Solar was a place set aside to be alone, but in this case, the use will be as the "private" space for all the Ladies when they need to sew or weave or read or not be bothered by the "men" in the Castle. The Lord has his Council Chamber across the Great Hall... the Ladies have their dedicated workspace in this room. The Last room at the top is planned to be The Lady's Bedchamber.... and it will be a while before we can get to that room.... but it is on the list! 

 

 

And some of you might recall that a couple of years ago

 as I was finally getting back to work on the Chapel,

 I did a little bit of work on the room above it,

 specifically, reducing the too large openings

 for the two windows on the back wall. 

Of course, it is necessary to turn the Tower

 in order to access or see the back side at all.

 

( I apologize for the blurry and dark pictures... 

my house is not well lit when the shades are drawn

 to keep the heat out....)

 and suddenly you can see that there is a whole lot

 of work needing to be done on this Tower!

 The side wall has not even gotten the coat 

of primer and base color yet!

 Well, this has to do with the 

still to be added electrical panel

 and wire channels for this Tower... 

not to mention the Postern Gate entrance.... 

so you can see the list of "to dos" is growing

 now that we can move onward and upward. 

 

But what I had done a couple of years ago,

 as you can see here, was to reduce the openings

 for the back wall windows...

 even though the back wall of the Tower

 had already been painted a few years earlier. 

Now I could see that the new smaller openings

 on the back still needed to be painted to match

 the stone walls already finished.

 

This wasn't complicated. 

It took longer to dry than it did to paint....!

 First the primer coat....

 

Then the gray base and the "rock" texture details.....

 

You can see the narrow space I am working in.... 

here next to the Cupboard House and the cupboard it sits on....

 

Here you can see the painted "rocks" with the flash.... 

all it needs is the grout lines....

 

making those wall inserts really disappear! 

Because I really want to get the back windows completed 

before working on the interiors of these rooms.

 You know the drill... it is a complicated process

 of building the frames... 

one inner and one outer for each window...

 

I won't bore you with all the steps.... 

you can read about it in earlier posts... 

(see the archives) but it is days and days of work....

 

Inside and out. This is the interior view with flash...

 (so you can see it at all!) 

Because reaching in to the dark back wall of the room

 is so difficult, I decided to attach the glass panes

 from the outer back side, 

which means the interior frames 

are glued in place first.

 (It is impossible to reach both sides of the windows

 at the same time.)

 

And the glass panes are cut to fit the openings

 

 

and the faux "leading" applied, 

 

and trimmed to clean up the blobs....

 a whole other complex process you can read about in the archives. 

 

 

Then the glass panes are positioned and fitted from the back side. 

(With much double checking to look from the inside!)

 And of course, forgetting to take pictures when the going gets tricky.....

 

Both windows from the exterior....

 with the flash.... about as good as the view will get!

 

And from the inside...

 with the window crossbars added

 making sure they align properly with the leading.

 

And Lo and Behold, Dear Readers, 

we have two new windows completed... 

well, except for the shutters and stone trims and... well, 

you know how it goes... there is always a next step!

But at least we are now working on

 the Next Level Up! 

 

Tweaks And Twitches.....

No Escaping the Shadows.....

Finishing Touches, Dear Readers, are always the hardest part of an elaborate project. Knowing when it is "done" is an art in itself, one which eludes me most of the time. "Done enough for Now" is more my style as you may have noticed over the years. I am not a perfectionist by any sense of the word, but I have an exacting eye, so what troubles the eye is a matter of "what can I ignore or overlook for the sake of my sanity?" It is my guiding principle in making miniatures. So I ask you again and again, to use a forgiving eye, (especially when you can blow the images up to an alarming scale...!) as you behold the Finishing steps of the Chapel paintings. Having rendered all the faces so cheerfully on The Tower of Babel workmen, (most of the faces are only 1/8 of an inch in size) I had to make myself get back to work on the very time consuming and finicky parts... the clothes and the tools and the very rocks themselves. So many details, and always another one. I started with the blues... (yes, my favorite color in the world) always with an eye to what the original miniature was showing... this is a copy, after all! My tiniest brush added the shadows .... those darker places that seem to define our existence..... (how would we know brightness without darkness to show contrast?) 

 

 

Worker by worker, garment by garment.... 

slowly building out the richness of the details... 

adding that sparkle that brings things alive... 

trying to get the tools right.... 

even when I don't know what the tool is....!... 

I could only work for so many hours

 before my eyes weren't seeing anymore

 and I had to stop for the day.

 

And the Next day starting in again with

 the shadows for the browns and tans... 

and the few items of  greens... 

and the belts and those shoes! ..... 

so many tiny details....

 

And the ground itself....

 of course, I forget to take pictures when

 I am submerged in the depth of details....

 Believe me, there is Always something else... 

a tiny tweak, a twist of color, a darker shadow, 

the filling of fractional missed spots of color... 

(it Always amazes me how much this matters in the end!)

 

And the few photos I remember to take,

prove inadequate upon closer examination... 

focus, focus... focus... 

and somehow I have to decide to leave it alone for now... 

perhaps it is "done enough for now"..... 

 

And I return to the Annunciation, 

which itself lacks a few glaring details....  

the shadows of the furniture 

(her chair which sits mostly on the split side

 of the door overlap panel, 

and the lettering of Gabriel's message itself, 

which you can see finished here in the above photo. 

Can we pronounce it finished enough for now? 

Which brings us to that magical moment,

 the question hovering in the air... 

am I ready to glue the Chapel ceiling and trims in place? 

 Shall we have a look and see....?

 (And I must use the flash here or you would see nothing but shadows... 

so instead you see nothing of the shadows in the glaring light!)

 

This is the view of the Nativity side with the ceiling in place

 but not the ceiling  trim pieces.... 

just so we have a record of the process, you understand.

 It helps to understand the need for the trims 

and how challenging they are to fit and paint....

 

And the God in Heaven above the altar.... 

 

The Crucifixion panel beside the altar...

 

The Moses panel... on the alcove's opposite wall...

 

The Adam and Eve panel below the Creation scenes.... 

and a corner of the ceiling over the doors...

 

And the entire ceiling looking directly up from the doors.... 

you will notice the corner edges where the

 walls and ceiling meet are not very tidy. 

It is the job of the ceiling trim to cover all those gaps! 

To help make those corners "disappear"...

 

So, in the order of gluing them in... 

the trim above the Crucifixion.... 

(the trim above the altar was glued in place

 waaay back at the beginning of construction,

 but I could not attach the other panels until the ceiling 

was attached because the arched vaulting prevents

 the sliding movement once the trim is glued along the sides.)

 

And the trim along the Moses panel.... 

remember I had to paint God's fingertips

 to continue onto this piece of trim! 

(And I failed to account for the thickness of the trim 

when painting the extension of his golden thought radiance....)

 

And here you see the trim over the Nativity 

and the right side of the door arch.... 

it doesn't meet in the middle because of the

 "arch" over the Main Door extending so far up onto the ceiling...

 (I really had to disregard corners a lot in this Chapel!)

 

And the Creation and the Garden of Eden

 along with the Noah panel...

 

And the whole ceiling from the open side, 

with the stone column also glued in place.

 

And from a lower angle... 

showing more of the stone walls...

 

And a slightly different angle... 

showing the Nativity wall...

 

And with the exterior opening doors open....

 

The Annunciation and the Nativity side....

 

 And the Tower of Babel and Garden of Eden side...

 

And from the inside with one of the door panels closed..... 

(perhaps I need to repaint that stone upper door edge.....)

 

And from inside with the other door panel closed.... 

I will have to see if I can get the camera in 

through the Great Hall door to see both panels closed.....

(but that will be another day...) 

 

From the outside with the altar candles lit...

 

And inside with the candles lit... 

and the daylight coming in through 

only one of the stained glass windows...

 (sigh)...

(the trials of a too small house...) 

 

Heavens Above! 

It would Appear, Dear Readers,

 that after all the tweaking and

 touching up and finishing Details...

 I have finally finished the Chapel!