The Tudor House Revisited, Part 4 - The Final One!

The street level of the Tudor House is the home owners' embroidery shop. It is sparsely furnished, with just the bare necessities. The trestle table at the centre is a display surface for large embroidery pieces, and is piled pretty high currently. The chest has an embroidered pad on it, as well as a cushion in the corner. The box contains samples of black work offered by the shop, and with the lid down it doubles as an additional seat. The lady of the house is hard a work at another commissioned project; from the looks of it, it is intended to be another seat cushion or pad.

The majority of the furnishings here are from DHMS projects; however, the chest was a kit purchased at Camp MiniHaHa, put together by Shelley A. of mini_addiction. The embroidery designs are from books and magazines; all 3 of the UK publications, and Pamela Warner's and Sandra Whitehead's books on dollhouse embroidery.

The designs are a little more visible in this photo; the peacock table carpet needs fringing, but is otherwise done. Early carpets were too valuable for floors, so they were used as table and bed covers. Dutch people still tend to put carpets on their tables; I do! Those are specifically made for tables, though, and I inherited a narrow Bokhara runner from my parents and a larger carpet from my maternal grandparents. The latter has a small hole, and I am trying to find someone to repair that Real Life carpet for me, difficult indeed in our small province of Canada.

 The small black work squares are "samples", while the larger ones and the rectangles are "for sale". Black work is fun to do, these were done on 22 ct hardanger fabric using a single strand of floss.

Black work was introduced to England by Henry VIII's first wife, Katherine of Aragon, and if you look at paintings and drawings of the period, you will see this type of embroidery widely used in the clothing of the very wealthy, often with the addition of gold thread detailing. 

The small cushion has a bird on it, while the hanging on the left of the photo is of a rabbit. The other hanging is a very old type of sailing ship, with Moorish roots from the looks of it. I just loved the colour combinations in this little hanging.  I really should put a rail on the wall to display these hangings, you can't see them all covered up on the table.... (Oh no, I just created myself yet another project!)

I wonder if I should start blogging photos of UnFinished Objects; maybe that will be the kick in the backside I need to get these projects done. Once they are done, I will not have to have all those shoebox-size boxes, full of things to eventually go into these projects, sitting on my overburdened storage shelves!