Tiny Houses

When I say tiny, I mean about 20 cm or 8" wide - yes I'm talking about doll's houses. But not your normal doll's houses which are 1:12 scale, with one inch representing twelve inches in the real world. These little treasures are 1:48 - much smaller.

Hedgerow Cottage from Petite Properties

I only recently discovered the world of tiny doll's houses and went to the Miniatura show at the NEC last weekend to find out more. It was quite a small show (well, everything is ... small) but absolutely jam-packed with amazing miniatures. There was furniture, china, paintings, dolls - everything you need to fill a doll's house and much of it handmade with an incredible attention to detail.

How about some toys for your doll's house nursery? A Noah's Ark or a toy farm perhaps?

Toys by Jacqueline Crosby

Or what about some books for the library? These are complete editions of real books (although human people will need a magnifying glass to read them).

Dateman Books

There were several stalls selling tiny packaging representing every household product you can imagine. These little things were so small you had to pick them up with tweezers.

But what I really wanted to see were the 1:48 houses and I wasn't disappointed. Herdwick Landscapes had houses inspired by the work of Beatrix Potter.

Can you see Tom Kitten by the door?

I was very tempted by this kit for a log cabin from Seaside Miniatures.

Wouldn't this make a lovely Little House on the Prairie?

The same stall also had kits for beach huts.

I was really impressed by the kits and miniatures made by Jane Harrop. It was hard to take photos of her stand as it was permanently crowded but do go and have a look at her website. She even has a 1:48 kit for a Camping Coach. I think I might have to practise a bit before I'm up to making that. I did manage to get a snap of this lovely greenhouse on the end of her stand.

Before I talk about my absolutely favourite stand at the show, I must show you some of the scenes being displayed by a Doll's House group from Rugby with the wonderful name of 'Small Scale Fiddlers'. They set themselves a challenge each year and, this year, it was to create a scene inspired by a book. Here are just a few of them ...

Wind in the Willows

The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Aren't they good? It made me wonder which book I would have chosen - perhaps Lucy Boston's The Children of Green Knowe - a model of Tolly's room, complete with rocking house would be lovely.

I can't wait any longer before showing you where I spent most time on the day - my absolute favourite of all the stalls ... Petite Properties.

What is so lovely about these is that they are finished in all different ways to represent traditional building styles from around the country. There are brick houses, stone cottages, ones with thatch and others with tiles and they're all beautiful. You can also buy bases to fit the cottages so that you can add a garden and perhaps some little outbuildings.

This is The Little Duck House with its base, complete with a sun house and, of course, a pond. You could add a greenhouse to the Gardener's Cottage or a playground to the School.

Any of these would make a lovely ornament but these houses are also doll's houses. The fronts and roofs come off to reveal rooms just waiting to be filled with tiny furniture - they have kits for that too. I was particularly taken with this set of shop kits, called Cobblestone Snicket.

Wouldn't these make a perfect Diagon Alley? I'd love to turn the one with the bow fronted windows into 'Weasley's Wizard Wheezes'. 

So ... what did I buy from this wonderful stand? I finally settled on a kit to make this little house ...

Parsnip Cottage has five rooms over two floors, including a lean-to scullery and a cupboard staircase. Just look at all the little pieces in the kit.

I also bought kits for the internal doors, fireplaces and cooker.

I think I'm going to need some fine tweezers when I put these together ...

That's a £1 coin to give you some idea of size.

I also got these two really exciting books, written by Bea Broadwood.

The one on the exterior finishes for the houses is brilliant. Bea explains how to create any style of house, with step by step instructions for creating bricks, stone, thatch - most of them surprisingly simple. The things you need are cheap and easy to find. You can make a tin roof from corrugated card or tiles from a combination of spaghetti, tin foil and sand! I think I'm going to try a brick finish for my cottage (cheap filler, paint and eye shadow), although I shall practise on some card first.

I had a lovely day at Miniatura; I think it was the friendliest show I've been to. The next one is in the autumn so, if I can make my cottage by then, I might go back for more.

February in Yarn

I finished the second block in my Year in Yarn project, just before the start of a new month. February's square was really uneven before blocking and still looks a bit wavy but I'm sure it'll be fine once I've added more blocks.

I only worked on six projects in February which isn't many for me ... but I did finish a couple of things. Keeping track of what I'm making like this is definitely helping me get on with things that might otherwise be forgotten.

So, starting from the top left, that navy blue and red rectangle represents yet another new crochet blanket. I'm working swirly textured circles in lots of colours and then turning them into squares with the navy edging. 

The centres look like they're raised in this picture but they're not; the squares lie flat. I thought I'd use lots and lots of shades of Stylecraft Special DK for this one to make it a charm blanket (charm quilts have lots of fabrics, each used only once).

The big knitted grey square with the red and blue stripes is for my Pocket Boxes which I finished in February. These are little pop-up boxes, just right for holding stitch markers or other tiny things.

I do like making this sort of thing - fun, small and pretty colours.

The next rectangle - the yellow and cream one - is for a project that got started and stalled in the same month. I had the idea of working a brioche stitch in two colours on double pointed needles, inspired by Nancy Marchant's book Knitting Brioche. Well, I worked out a stitch I liked and it sort of worked but I'm not really happy with it. I think I need to leave this one for a bit and let it re-think itself - and yes, that does happen.

The big cream square at the bottom represents my finished Secret Garden blanket which I'm really pleased with. This one took me a year to knit and is quite detailed but I loved knitting it from start to finish.

I've been surprised at how popular this has been on ravelry; it's normally my simple designs that catch peoples' eye. It'll be interesting to see if anyone actually knits it.

What's next? Ah yes, two more blankets (there's a surprise). The crochet one with several colours is for my Mini Marshmallow blanket which finally got going again in February. The blue triangle is part of my latest Ten Stitch design. I'm not telling you what this is as I want it to be a surprise when I publish it but it's getting pretty big now. I think it will look better for being really big so I'm carrying on with it for a bit longer but it shouldn't be too long now.

And that's what I was working on in February. I've just finished the list of projects I worked on in March and there are more than twice as many - lots of them crochet - so the next block will look completely different.

And here's the first of the scrapbook pages to go with February's block.

Note the censored Ten Stitch title.