Carpets....

 

 Updates....

It Has been a while, Dear Readers, since I showed you any progress on my carpet stitching. This is something I work on in little bits and pieces here and there, and I often forget to take any pictures of progress. This might be because it always feels like I haven't made any progress, the stitches added are so small and few! But over time it adds up to a lot, and now I am nearing the finish of the central portion of the carpet. It is an elaborate pattern, but once you have stitched a few of the sections, you recognize the pattern which mostly just repeats with a different combination of colors. So you do have to pay attention! I know all those "extra" threads look like a tangle, but they will each be continued in stitching when I get to that part of the pattern. This is just a method of not constantly ending and starting the threads again and again.

 

And you might be forgiven for thinking you might never again see

 the carpet I was working on last spring! 

I did get the fringe added as you can see above.

I was only part way through stitching this carpet,

when I began to wonder if it would fit in the 

Dollmaker's Studio upstairs room. 

Of course, while it is on the needlework frame,

 I could not give it a "test" and had to wait until 

the stitching was completed before I could try it out.

I think it is so perfect I could not have planned a better fit!

And the little "bits" of blue I had added into the centers of some of those ovals

 is a perfect "reflection" of the ceiling above! 

(I had wondered if this would work!)

It is just impossible to simultaneously show you 

the details of the floor and the ceiling above!.

That will have to wait for it's own post!

And my newest carpet, Dear Readers,

 which you have not seen anything of at all, 

surprised even me!

But let me show you....

It has to do with the Ravenwood...

One of the features of this kit that enchanted me right from the start

 is the three floor grand staircase in the Tower section!

It even has cut outs for the stairs in the floors! 

The little people will be able to climb those stairs!

But first you have to add all the interior decorative papers... 

ceilings, floors and walls.

The color palette is a sophisticated selection of 

gray and black and ecru designs in tiny tiny prints. 

(It is very well designed!)

 

 

And here I must apologize for forgetting to take pictures... 

as I rushed ahead with my rash additions...

there are no pictures of the "before" staircase!

But suffice it to say that it was spray painted entirely black

 like the exterior framework... 

and when inserted into the grand hallway... 

it just lost too much of it's striking detail. 

(In my humble opinion) 

I thought it needed a brilliant contrast....

Like a crimson stair runner..... 

winding up that elegant stairway....

Could I manage to make something like that....?

That small....?

Well.... I had to try!

I found a luscious piece of thin raw silk... 

and cut it into a very thin strip....

And one step at a time, glued the carpet to the stair...

waiting for it to dry completely before doing the next step....

And the different stair "blocks" had to be done separately

 because they were not all to be assembled outside the Tower....

The side rail piece is added to the lower block

 and these sections are glued together.

Here are all three sections of the first floor stairs. 

 

 

And both sets of stairs are now "carpeted"!

But you might have noticed the rail sections

 have some etched design in their surface... 

and I thought they needed augmentation!

 

 

 Those newel posts needed to be a little more robust... 

and perhaps even have a three dimensional quality  

to the rounded tops!

Out came the glue...

 

 Those white blobs are the "glue trick"... 

I add a dot of glue and let it dry

 and then layer a few more layers on.. 

creating a three dimensional surface...

When all dry it is painted to match the rest of the surface.

Then came the really hard part, Dear Readers, 

correctly lining up and gluing the stairs into the Tower!

You had to start with the section at the top....

 glue it in place ... 

hoping the top of the next section

 would meet it in the right place...!

Once there was glue involved...

 there was no changing anything!

The bottom section was the most challenging.

The three sections had been assembled outside of the Tower... 

 

And when inserted carefully into the stair opening.... 

you had to hope they would meet the walls and floors just right!

(Mine didn't...!)

 

 

Were the walls a little off? The floor?

There was a sliver of space underneath the stairs

 that didn't touch the floor.... hmmmm...!

I will have to insert a piece to disguise this... 

fortunately, it is so small you don't notice it at first!

And once the glue is in place....

Nothing can be changed!

 

 

But I do think, Dear Readers, 

that the crimson stair carpet adds a

 Brilliant touch to this Grand Staircase!

And if you look very carefully...

You can even see it through the doorway!

I do Love my Carpets....!

 

 

Ravenwood Exterior....

 

Windows, Siding, Porches and Shingles....

With the basic Shell of the House completed, Dear Readers, It was time to add some of the Exterior artwork. Above you can see the house with the two pull-out sections showing the interior rooms before any of the exterior trims and artwork were added. The Tower rooms are not showing because it lifts out from the top. This does make it a bit awkward to display... but the Tower interiors have some really wonderful features! But first we must complete the exterior of the building, starting with adding the wonderful printed paper siding...

This step always makes me nervous... 

getting glue on the outside of the paper is not a good idea,

 so you have to be careful when applying it.

The fit of the cut out shapes is excellent

 and requires virtually no trimming.

It looks wonderfully worn... I love the color!

And with the side pull-out wall done too!

Then all the delicate window frames are cut from their "motherboard".

The layers need to be glued together, 

and each painted individually...

a slow and delicate process.

I neglected to take pictures...

Here you can see the front door has been attached!

The frame holds the acrylic window in place in the opening.

I have put reflective glitter paper behind the window frames

 on either side of the door. This is because they are not real windows...

and I wanted them to look more reflective and glittery.

If you look carefully at the earlier pictures,

 you will see that the area behind these frames

 was just a blurry gray tone.

I wanted it to glow... glitter.... shine....!

Especially as it will be tucked under the porch....

when we get to that!

Adding the rest of those lovely windows and frames went pretty quickly... 

at least, I forgot to take any progress pictures!

The side pull-outs are finished too.

Here you can see a great comparison

 of my added attic window with the kit version below...

But really, the house is supposed to be weathered and worn...

 maybe I should have roughed up the window frames a bit...

The next step is adding the porches.... 

as with many of these tiny pieces

 they are made of glued together layers

 to achieve a three dimensional decorative relief.

Of course, I forgot to take any pictures

 of the very tiny finicky pieces!

Here the porch roof railings and trims have been added.

 

 

Oh, what a wonderful spooky porch!

 

 

We are almost finished with the exterior details, Dear Readers,

 but the next steps are complicated!

If you look closely at the edges of the roof in the above picture,

 you will see the edge trim pieces have been added.

These are built of several layers glued together,

 cut to the right length and attached along the outer edges of the roof.

 

It was really difficult to understand the directions

 on how and where to apply the trim

 until more than one piece was added... 

they need to abut the correct way on the opening pull-out roofs.

 

But on the Tower roof they abut slightly differently

 because there is no side pull-out.

 

 Laying the shingles was relatively easy.

The guide templates fit perfectly.

Plenty of shingles are supplied!

The first shingled roof is done... 

and you can see how it fits up against the edge trim pieces.

Here I am adding shingles around the Tower window that I added... 

so I needed to fit the template around the window before I added the shingles.

Once you have glued all the shingles to the template,

 you cut the edges back to the opening.

Like this.

Then it slips neatly into place on the Tower,

 between the edge trim pieces!

Doesn't that look as if it were part of the original design?

I did the Pull-out side roofs last.

They had the trickiest edge pieces....

And the fitting was trickier....

Again, the shingles were glued to the template,

 then the window was cut away....

There is a strip of edge trim on both the

 pull-out side and the front roof edge.

Here you can see how they align when the house is all closed.

I must say, Dear Readers,

 with the windows, siding, porches and shingles,

 all the extra little details on this kit

 do make it look wonderfully realistic!

Just a few more little additions are still needed, 

but the Ravenwood Exterior is nearly complete!

 

Ravenwood .....

 

More Windows...

You Might Recall, Dear Readers, that a few weeks ago, before the Mayhem that is All Hallows Eve on this blog took over, I was embarking on the building of the 144th scale Ravenwood Kit designed by Sean and Robin Betterley. It is a wonderful kit! But soon after I started to build it I realized that I needed to make a few changes. The first was adding a window to the Tower attic, because I could not accept that there was an attic with no access at all. Well, no sooner had I added it, than I looked at the other two attic rooms on the sides of the house and decided that they had to have windows too. I hadn't noticed this lack when I was making the Secret Christmas House kit, many years ago, but now I just thought an attic room with no window was intolerable! So I started right in cutting the openings in the roof.

This was done in much the same way as the window for the Tower, 

starting by drilling a hole with an ever larger bit. 

Only this time the window wanted to have a pointed gothic shape.

So I used my small files to form the window opening into the gothic arch.

Then I added the cardboard "dormer roof" over each one,

 trying to match them in size as best I could.

(I am hand cutting all these pieces.)

Here you can see the position of the window when

 the "pullout" section is in the House frame.

It is on the side of the building rather than the front

 because I want to be able to see the dormer window

 from inside when I have the rooms "open".

The next step was to try to cut a window frame out of card stock...

And paint it black... 

it is easier to do this step before

 you cut it completely out of the card stock...

Then I glued it and the window pane... 

(cut from thick plastic packaging...)

into the opening, trying to be sure

 it remained as vertical as possible.

 

Here you can see the window with the light reflecting off it...

 clearly showing how uneven my window panes are!

(But who is ever going to be close enough to notice that ...?)

Here is the dormer seen from the interior of the room.

 I painted the interior of the dormer a color similar

 to the wallpaper which will be used in this room...

 we will see how it looks when the paper is added.

Here you can see both windows are done!

I really like the view through the window into the room!

And even better the "window shadow" on the floor!

And here the "rooms" are inside the house frame...

 showing the new windows in the attic rooms!

And I hope you will agree with me, Dear Readers,

that in spite of all the beautiful windows that came with this kit,

 it definitely needed a few more!