Thursday 28 May 2015

Kensington Dollhouse Festival and the Furniture Makers

The best of the best were on show at the Festival, and I just mostly stood and looked at them and admired them. One of the dealers, I swear, was selling miniature tables for over 3,000 British pounds!
Ann High, Beith Miniatures, Brian Underhay, Chris Malcolmson, Colin Bird, Cristina Noriega, David Hurley, David Iriarte, Geoff Wonnacott, Janet Reyburn, John and Sue Hodgson, Kim Selwood, Michael Mortimer, Pear Tree Miniatures, Rohit's Miniatures, all the famous (and thus also pricey) names. I did buy one piece of furniture:



This is a scale copy of a full-size prie-dieu, or prayer bench. It was made by Thomas Burchmore, a new name for me. He is going to have to re-design further versions of this, as he find some of the small detailing is very difficult to do in this scale. I am glad to have one of the fancy ones!  And then, two stalls over from Mr. Burchmore, was HiJinx, who make embroidery kits.


This is a lovely kneeler cushion, in two shades of red and a gold. It is 22 count, and I will have to do it on smaller count fabric to fit the kneeler on the prie-dieu. I've made up a number of Carolyn's patterns from UK dollhouse magazines, and I really do like her colour schemes. This red on red with gold will look very nice in the bedroom of the Tudor house; now I have to find or make a Book of Hours to go on the lectern portion. Hopefully I can find a Brothers Limbourg illustration to go into it, I just love their wonderful medieval scenes.

In case you're wondering what I'm referring to, try looking up Les Tres Riches Heures de Jean, Duc de Berry; this is a book of prayers the Limbourgs illustrated, and you will likely recognize the type of illustration. They used to portray rich gentry, riding usually by a castle, with ordinary people doing field work of some sort near them, and these are often used by scholars for tool identification and the like. The colours are just incredible, including that wonderful turquoise blue made from ground-up lapis lazuli.

Another chapter soon; the weekend promises to be busy, but I hope to make time for more photos and descriptions.


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