The Tiny Settee Upholstery....

How Hard Can It Be....?

I Left you last week, Dear Readers, with the incomplete Settee for the Tiny Roombox, and me struggling with which fabric to use. I thought I had made a perfectly good carpet in the first attempt. At least it looked well with the colors of the room. But it was not a good match to the carpet in The Folly itself, and with the tiny roombox trying to be a copy of that room, I thought I might have to try again. And then the settee was not at all to my liking using the same fabric as the carpet, it just didn't look enough like the settee in The Folly, and the two together were all wrong! So I was back to square one seeking fabric in tiny patterns and colors similar to the one in The Folly! How hard could it be?  Well, I spent a considerable amount of time pawing through my fabric stash.... Looking for tiny prints in patterns and colors even close to the Chinese red and blue in The Folly! Over and over again I found pieces that were not small enough, not the right color, too thick.... this was much harder than I thought it would be! But I got lucky! I found a piece of fabric with a tiny bit of print that would probably work for the carpet..... but only if I got creative.....

Here you can see the new carpet completed... along with the old one....

So you can see the colors are a good, almost Perfect fit!

But I had to piece this rug together from tiny pieces of patterned print...

Can you see it on the little fan in the middle...? 

Fan shaped... not rectangular.......

I cut the fans out and glued them onto a piece of silk seam binding....

Here you can see some of the trimmed pieces.....

And the carpet glued together... 

made up of three sections of the pattern aligned carefully!

Yes, I do like that carpet! 

But the fabric on the settee is still all wrong!

I went back to searching my fabrics.

And while I was at it, I made a tiny hearth rug too.....

 

It is not exact...... but it resembles the one in The Folly.....

Which you can see in this picture... 

(I know there is a lot of mess on the floor!)

And you can also see a glimpse of the settee

 and the fabric I am hoping to copy.....

And while I was searching my fabrics again and again...

I also made a tiny framed picture for the wall behind the settee.

Sorry this picture is upside-down, 

because the image is so small that 

I had it turned the wrong way when I took the picture!

It is a Madonna and child .... 

taken from a printed mini book page of a Medieval Manuscript.

The colors and subject are right, even though 

it is not the same painting as the one on the wall in The Folly!

(Remember you can poke the pictures to enlarge them!)

I tried other prints from that same fabric......

 

 

But I really didn't like the way they looked at all!

This was much harder than I thought it would be!

But then, Dear Readers, 

I remembered that I had (half-jokingly) 

responded to a comment last week,

 that I would probably end up painting some cloth....!

Well....Just How hard would That be???

Well, it turns out Dear Readers,

 it was Not very hard at all!

I found two scraps of silk, 

a white with a texture and an off white raw silk...

pulled out my acrylic paints 

and painted a "similar" design to the fabric on the settee.

The design is so tiny, I have really only approximated it......

But it gives the stripe and medallion feel of the pattern, 

and the colors are right. I even used the gold paint!

I decided to use the white textured one... 

and I was so excited that I forgot to take any pictures of the process! 

So you will just have to imagine the next steps.

The fabric is glued to a piece of plain paper cut to the exact shape needed,

and the edges are then turned under and glued to the back of the paper....

and then it is glued to the settee.

Basically the same method used for larger pieces, just very small!

I did my best to match the stripes and pattern.....

I really think it looks remarkable....!

(sorry it is a little blurry... so hard to photograph this small!)

Can you see it now?

And in the roombox...?

Can you see the resemblance...?

Maybe if we move some of the mess....

Now it looks like I imagined it could!

Well, Dear Readers, That is the smallest 

upholstery I have ever attempted!

And it really wasn't as hard as I thought it would be!

La Recamier

Learning As I Go.....

I am Rather pleased, Dear Readers, with the results of this Tiny furniture experiment! I have wanted to make a Mini version of the Iconic Recamier sofa ever since I can remember! There are many commercial versions you can buy, and I think someday I might even try making one in 1:12 scale, but I just could Not resist attempting one for this Tiny Tree House bedroom! The sofa has many variations in form, some with a low back rest on one side, some with equal height curved ends, and some with a recurved foot like the one I have made. I did not make up this design, I saw a picture somewhere on the Internet and knew at once that I wanted to copy that design! I will confess right away that my version is Not perfect... there are things I would do better if I were starting another one.... But  nonetheless, I started with a Tiny to scale sketch...

Which is Very faintly drawn here.... 

I refined the sketch on the right... and cut out patterns.... 

and started to cut the tiny pieces from thin plywood....

The pieces are Very Tiny.... 

and I used my small files to refine the shape more....

and attached them to the seat.....

I did not file the curved end down enough... 

it ended up getting thicker than I had imagined especially after the upholstery was added.....

But I thought at the time that it matched my drawing well enough... so I kept going....

I added cardboard for the shaping of the curved ends....

and cut tiny legs from the tips of spindles...

 

I Really love the profile.... 

but ultimately think the foot curve should be smaller in proportion to the whole sofa.....

Of course, I had to test it in the Tree House.....

And then it needed painting black.....

And Upholstering!

Which took quite a while!

I have the PERFECT pale green silk.....

But I wanted to have tufting like on the original...

 

I used manilla folders for the paper base..... 

punched a pattern of holes....

I used a layer of felt as the stuffing....

And carefully stitched it together....

And glued it to the outside of the foot of the sofa!

And did the same for the head.....

The seat section is covered with an un-stuffed layer...

because there will be an additional tufted cushion covering it.....

As you can see, the upholstery is making the curved end much thicker than in my drawing....

But it is also because I did not file it down enough...... 

the whole foot should be a bit smaller.... and a little less incurved.

Perfect or not, I also wanted it to have lovely gold trim.... 

which I made by gluing gold thread....

One tiny section at a time....

On both sides.....

It is starting to look Almost as I had Imagined Dear Readers.... 

but what Recamier is finished without a bolster pillow?

You can see the beginnings below.... 

it was the most time consuming part of the entire sofa!

Because I wanted it to have tassels... 

Gold tassels.... 

and the first pair I made with the same gold thread I used for the trim... 

but they were much too coarse and large. 

Fortunately I found some gold sewing thread and made a much smaller pair!

Here you can see I have attached them to the ends before gluing the cloth to the bolster....

And here you can see the completed bolster....

What a lot of trouble just for a bolster!

But I really do think it makes the piece!

And while I might wish the foot was a smaller curve... 

I think it works Just Perfectly in this room!

Talk about a Learning Curve! 

It may not be Perfect, 

but I LOVE my first Recamier!