Colchester Dolls House Shop

Yesterday David and I drove down to Colchester in Essex to visit the Colchester Dolls House shop.

I didn't get any shots inside the shop, but this is what I bought:

The plain porcelain dishes I intend to paint myself.  I loved the Tudor hinges, and hope to use them in the kitchen :)  The copper kitchen tools I'll definitely age and refinish.

The little salt box will end up in one kitchen or another.  I got the two planters because I want to build a couple of topiaries.  The blue and white pottery will end up in the William and Mary house, and the little metal mug and goblets are by Falcon Miniatures.

I splurged a little on this Tudor standing light fixture for the castle.  I liked the mortar and pestle and the giant tankard, and the little gravy boat is by Warwick Miniatures and is destined for the William and Mary house.

And here are some items for Mum's roombox:  plates for the plate rail and a lamp for the desk :)  The shop didn't have either of the dolls house shops I was most interested in seeing in stock (as far as we could see) so I decided not to buy a building, and David and I will try to construct our own dolls house pub.

We can't quite believe it, but today was our last day in England.  It's been an amazing, wonderful trip!  Today the sun was shining (for a change :) and we decided to tour Lavenham itself starting with the National Trust museum in the Guildhall.  (David and I have taken tons of reference photos of this historic village and will post a selection on our Flickr account when we get back home.)    We had lunch at the Three Horseshoes, supper at The Greyhound (seriously, if you ever find yourself in Lavenham, have the Newmarket sausages and mash here :) and in between I visited some antique shops for 1:1 treasures!

We'll be heading out to the airport at 8 am tomorrow morning, so I'll try to catch up while we're waiting at Gatwick for our flight home :)

Bijou Dollshouses, Braintree, Essex

This post is coming to you via an unexpected internet hotspot in our cottage in Lavenham, Suffolk :)  More photos from Lavenham in a later post, but I wanted to share with you today's trip to Bijou Dollshouses in Braintree.

This tiny shop is located in a craft centre outside Braintree in Essex.  It is very, very small, but everything in it is really good quality.

Bijou carries a wonderful line of 1:12 Tudor furniture by craftsman Tom Burchmore, and I was coveting a 6.5 inch long table with barley twist legs I had seen on the website, for the William and Mary House.  In the photo above you can see the short one on the bottom level and the really, really long one on the top -- the very kind saleswoman finally found the medium one in one of the gorgeous Tudor dolls houses :)  Hooray!

I wish I had taken more photos of the dollshouse pictured above.  It was absolutely gorgeous -- inspirational, beautifully-made -- and on sale for 1100.00 GBP :)

I adore the way this one has been finished.  It's a very East Anglian construction -- brick with flint infill -- and amazingly the finish is totally done in paint.  It's a bravura piece of trompe l'oeil painting.  I want one of my houses to be finished this way, although I'll probably use actual stones to represent the flint.

And here's what I bought!  Here's the table, with the pewter I picked up -- the large pitcher is by Warwick miniatures, and the two tankards, the flagon and two plates are old stock by St Justin Pewter in Cornwall.  In the second photo you can see a Warwick miniatures tea caddy and a griddle by (I think) The Village Wheelwright.  Really nice pieces.

And here's a nice pair of firedogs.

The last of my purchases today were four kits by McQueenie Miniatures.

These three are for Mum's roombox.  A side chair and a dressing table, that I will use for a desk under the window.  And a lovely bookcase.

I also splurged on an aumbry kit for the Tudor castle. All of  the McQueenie kits are mahogany, so I'll have to finish it in a way that disguises the colour of the wood, but I really, really wanted an aumbry and this kit has all the twiddly gothic cut-outs already done :)

What a lovely day!

Trains and toys

Yesterday we drove to Grosmont and rode the North Yorkshire Moors Railway down to Pickering.  I had never been on a steam railway before and I was so excited about this trip!  The scenery is, of course, beautiful on this special line, but the really amazing thing are the engines, coaches and stations, all run and maintained by volunteers.

Today we drove up to Newcastle and Hexham to visit some of David's old stomping grounds when he was an undergrad at Newcastle University in the 1960s.  We also paid a visit to the smallest miniatures shop I've ever seen, House of Cards in Middlesbrough :)  I picked up a couple of pieces:

The little black and gold chinoiserie table will either end up in my Mum's roombox or my William and Mary house.  The blue and white vase and the large brown jug are definitely for the William and Mary house.

The copper pans will brighten up the William and Mary kitchen, and I'm not sure where the desk will end up -- David loved it and bought it himself!

Tomorrow is Whitby -- fish and chips, another abbey, another pub and perhaps some more miniatures!

York, first of Staithes, family reunion

Yesterday we motored up from Chesterfield to Staithes on the North Yorkshire coast near Whitby.  We decided to take a scenic route through the city of York itself, where we stopped at one of the oldest and most respected model shops in England, Monks Bar Models.  David bought a OO scale loco in the Battle of Britain class (which he's wanted for some time) and we had a great time chatting to the staff about trains and railways, model or 1:1 :)

On the way back to the car, I saw this amazing sign for a fish and chips shop:

(This has to be right up there with my favourite punning shop name of all time, "The Merchant of Tennis" in Toronto :))

We then drove to Staithes through the moors themselves, stopping at one of our favourite pubs of last year, The Lion at Blakey Ridge, in the middle of the North Yorkshire Moors.  I took some reference photos of the interior because I just adore it. (The couple in the photo below were a little surprised that I took a photo of them -- I really just wanted the wonderful settle they're sitting on!)

We got to Staithes about 3:30 pm, and negotiated the narrow streets down to our self catering cottage which overlooks the Beck and the rest of the village.  The views from our windows are staggering.  I can't wait to get painting.

Today we had a walk around the town which is so scenic I felt my brains melting from the beauty and patina and history of it all :)  Then we went to the Mosey Family Meet-Up, where David got to meet his cousins and their children and grandchildren in Brotton, only six miles away!  These are cousins David never knew he had (his dad and his brother (David's cousins' dad) were orphaned and separated as youngsters) and not only are they close blood relatives but they are amazingly marvellous people!  I have never felt so welcomed anywhere in my entire life and David was so happy.  If you sat down and DESIGNED people to be related to, it would be the extended Mosey clan of Brotton :)

I particularly enjoyed meeting 10 year old Anna and her little sister Eve, who made me feel right at home and who I think must be honourary KnitWits at heart.  Anna likes the colour green and dancing and is brilliantly inventive and Eve likes the colour pink and gymnastics and has a great admiration for tarantulas and pythons.  These are my kinda girls :)

Anna created the following piece of challenging installation art, inspired by her father's nose, which was, tragically, "tidied up" by some members of the Bowls Club who didn't realize that she's the next Young British Artist à la Damion Hirst:

Ah well,  Anna, art, like life, is ephemeral.  Friends for ever, though :)

When we got back to the cottage, David cooked dinner.  After dinner I opened the front door to find a little black cat with half a tail waiting expectantly on the front steps.  "Hello there', I said to the little black cat with half a tail.  It walked right in as if it was totally at home (which I expect it is), and sat pointedly in front of our tiny refrigerator.  David and I exchanged looks.

"What do you think it would like?"  I asked him.  "Try some milk" he suggested.

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And here's a photo of a little chair and side table I bought at a totally random toy shop in York yesterday, which are destined for my mum's Edwardian roombox:

In the background, do you see a black shape asleep on our sofa?  If you live in Staithes and are the companions of a glossy, well-fed black cat with half a tail and more than the usual feline amount of chutzpah, it's safe and sound down at #5.  Don't worry, it's already had supper :)

First dolls house shop -- Dolls' House Gallery, Chesterfield

Well, here I am in a lovely hotel room in a pub just outside Chesterfield, having had probably the most exquisite sleep of my life, because I needed it so badly!  We had an incredibly smooth and easy flight on Thursday, picked up our car at Gatwick by 7:15 am yesterday and had motored up to Chesterfield by 10 am.   After opening time, we had our first pint in The Spread Eagle ... (well, David had a pint, I had a half of cider ...)  We were insanely jet lagged, footsore and feeling very middle aged, but we were so happy to be in England again!

More importantly, we visited the first dolls house shop of the trip:  the Dolls House Gallery on South Street in Chesterfield, just down the street from the pub :)

It was a great shop to start with -- fairly small, lots of lovely, affordable things, and staffed by the friendly husband of the owner, who was off packing for their three week trip to Florida!  (They were leaving the next day, so I almost missed them!) He very kindly allowed me to take some photos of the inside of the shop for the blog.

And here's what I bought:

A real, light-up Tudor fixture for The Great Hall, more "pewter plates" (I've decided you can never have too many), some baskets, a little cauldron, two jugs and a wooden bowl (I wish I'd bought more) whose perfect rim I can carve away at and make just a little more rustic!

Some things for the future William and Mary House (it's interesting to me how many of us have projects which only exist in potentia, but which are as real to us (if not more so :) than the ones that have actually been constructed!)  I'll use the hat stands as wig stands :)  David spotted the kittens, so of course we had to have a couple!  I'll refinish the library steps.

And here's my little treasure -- a tiny Swiss-made sewing box for my Mum's roombox :)

I apologize to everyone for not having visited their blogs -- I hope to get caught up this evening when we're settled into our self catering cottage in Staithes, North Yorkshire.  I've really missed reading your blogs, I feel so out of touch!

Thanks again for your comments -- I'm thinking of you all, and I feel sure that some year some of us could meet up in person over here!

More goodies for my Mum!

Most of these arrived in the post yesterday from The Linen Press in the UK.  They're from their extensive and charming line of Victorian paper ephemera, and are destined for Mum's Edwardian roombox.  (The exception is the little blue book on the left, which is my first attempt at making a book from the lovely book kits sold by Paper Minis -- although the kit is excellent, I didn't do a very good job and got glue on the cover :(  I'm sure I'll get better at it, though!)

This is a 1:12 scale deck of Happy Family cards!  (Look, you can see the grotesquely bread-like head of Master Bun the Baker's Son!)  David remembered playing this game when he was a lad in the 1950s, so I bought him a 1:1 reproduction Victorian deck a few years ago, and it's become one of the KnitWits' favourite games to play.   When I saw this tiny version, I had to have it.  It's an authentic reproduction of the Victorian original and the print quality is startling -- these cards are less than half an inch long! 

The Linen Press sells a variety of little photo albums either full of preprinted family photos or blank, for you to add your own.  I decided to get a blank set, and spent a pleasant half hour yesterday shrinking some scans I have of our family photos to half an inch long :)  The photo above shows my mother's grandmother and her five maiden aunts (her mum was the only daughter to marry).

And, lastly, there is this charming little version of the 1897 children's book, Nursery rhymes and fables.  Again, you can see how extraordinary the print quality is.

I'm going over to see Mum this afternoon to do some computer stuff with her and visit, and I'll take all my little presents with me! 

Wood turnings by Thomas Saunders

My order from Tom Saunders of Turnings in Miniature arrived today, which is incredibly quick considering the vagaries of Canada Post :) Aren't they beautiful?  The fruit bowl and platter are from tiger wood -- look at that extraordinary grain.  And the tiny bowl is of "mystery wood",  and I like it all the more for that :)

Thank you so much, Tom!  Your exquisite work will have a proud place in my castle :)

Look what I got in the mail!

At the post office were a number of intriguing little parcels for me today, and when I opened them I found these goodies!  (Even though I ordered them, it still feels like Christmas getting stuff in the mail :)

The painting is one of Monet's atmospheric works showing the Houses of Parliament.  This one was painted in 1904, and it's perfect in time period, subject and colouring for my Mum's Edwardian roombox. I bought it from Etsy seller LDelaney and it was a really good value.  Fast shipping, too.

There there were these tiny unfinished turned mortars and pestles and a wee spurtle for stirring 1:12 scale porridge!  The spurtle and one of the m&ps is for the William and Mary house, the other m&p is for the Tudor castle.  They were ordered from Ann Marie Miniatures in the UK.

And last and perhaps best of all is this incredible miniature bear from Bassom Bear in Wales.  This is for my Mum's roombox, as well, as it looks very like her beloved old teddy bear, Jackie, who still lives on a chair in her bedroom :)   When I opened the box, I was gobsmacked by its tiny perfection.

Bassom Bear is on Etsy, and she makes hand sewn miniature stuffed toys, usually around 2 inches tall, which would be large stuffed animals in our 1:12 scale.  Some of them, however are described as "tiny miniatures", like this perfect little bear, which is just under 1 1/14 inches when standing.  It's jointed and has teeny onyx bead eyes and tiny ultrasuede paws, and it's the most perfect little thing I've ever seen. 

I'm going to see Mum tomorrow afternoon and I'll take her these little gifts -- I hope she likes them!

My itinerary and shopping list for England :)

Well, I've been salivating over the shopping lists and wish lists other bloggers have posted for Kensington, so I decided to organize my own itinerary and list for our England trip next week!  I have a budget, and I've got all my dolls house funds in a little envelope so I'm not tempted to overspend :)

We're in England for just under two weeks, and will be staying in Staithes, North Yorkshire, and Lavenham, Suffolk.  We'll be spending our first night in Chesterfield, Derbyshire.

The following dolls' house shops are currently on my definite list:

Dolls House Gallery in Chesterfield

House of Cards in Middlesbrough (quite close to Staithes)

Bijou Dolls Houses in Braintree (along with bribery trip to King William IV pub for David :)

Perfect Miniatures in Sudbury (15 minutes from Lavenham :)  It also carries model railway stuff for David

Colchester Dolls Houses (not far from East Bergholt, and one of David's favourite pubs, the Dickie)

SHOPPING LIST

Shop Kit -- I'd like to buy a dolls house kit to use as a circa 1963 pub.  I may wait until we get to Colchester Dolls Houses to buy it, because they seem to have a great selection of shops for under 100 GBP.

The Shop -- 84.95 GBP

Brooke Road Stores -- 70.50 GBP

Village Shop -- 90.00 GBP

Millview -- 70.00 GBP

Arkwright's Shop -- 89.00 GBP

Which do you like best?

Accessories and furniture for the pub  -- it's going to be a pub owned and operated by an ex-RAF chap, so in addition to all the normal pub things, it's going to be decorated with WWII memorabilia and tiny model aircraft!  This is a salute both to my father, who flew Spitfires in WWII, and my husband David, who was in the RAF in 1963 :)

McQueenie's Miniatures kits -- Bijou Dolls Houses has a great selection of these.   I'd love to pick up one of McQueenie's Aumbry kits for the castle, as well as their mahogany bookcase, dressing table and chair (for the Edwardian Roombox), and cabriole leg stool, firescreen and library steps kits for the William and Mary House. 

Blue and white china -- I'll be on the look out for any blue and white china that takes my fancy for the William and Mary house.

Light fixtures --  for the Castle, the William and Mary House and the Pub. I'm especially looking for chandeliers appropriate for a 1700 house.

Kitchen accessories -- especially pewter.  Lots of pewter!

Rocking chair --  for the Edwardian Roombox

I'm so excited now! 

If anyone has any suggestions for must-sees during our brief visit, or feedback regarding the dolls house stores I've picked or shop kits, please leave me a comment!

New project -- Edwardian room box!

I've been thinking about doing a roombox for my Mum for a while now, and last week I decided I was going to do more than just think about it.

My darling Mum is 84 years old, and a real child at heart.  She's been a textile chemist, a broadcaster, an author and an educator through her long life, and she has a particular interest in costume history.  She loves the Edwardian period, best of all.  So I thought I'd make her a little Edwardian roombox.

It's been fun planning it and shopping for it.  (It's a nice change of pace from the Tudor period, that's for sure!)

On my trip to Toronto this week I picked up a few things for the project from the Little Dollhouse Company:

It's going to be a simple rectangular roombox, with a window in one end and a fireplace in the other.  It will be electrified.  I bought a ready-made window, and a really cool fireplace.  It is not electrified and had a horrible resin "fire" in it, but the grate pried out remarkably easily and the fire came off, and I  bought a good quality set of logs/flames to take its place, so with a little drilling and some messing about, I think it'll look super. I also think I'll tile the inside of it.

I also picked up a Reutters Tiffany lamp, a ceiling rose, some William Morris-y wallpaper and a little fox terrier.  (Mum had a wire-haired terrier named "Skipper" when she was a girl, to whom she recited "The Burial of Moses" and other poems she was learning.

There will be a woman and a little girl in the roombox, along with the dog.  Now, my Mum was a child in the 1930s, not 1915, so the little girl isn't, strictly speaking, supposed to be her, but just a little girl with dark brown hair who happens to have a terrier :)

I want to make up the basic room box as quickly as possible so I can give it to her before we leave for England on May 20th.  That way, I can bring her some presents home with me from our trip!

My Mum is on the internet (in fact she's the web master for the Costume Society of Ontario website), but as far as I know she doesn't check this blog.  If she does see this before the roombox shows up -- surprise, Mum!

Edited to add the following photo, Edwardian Interior, by Harold Gilman

I love this!  All the paintings and photos on the wall, the textiles on the furniture, the flowers.  This is it!

List of historical plants for period gardens

I was idly wondering the other day, as I arranged my hydrangeas in my Tudor kitchen, whether they were, strictly speaking, appropriate for the period*.

Shortly after that question popped into my head, I found this great link to information that anyone planning appropriate plants and flowers for a historical miniature setting should know about:


Lesley's Garden -- Historical Garden Information and Plant Lists 

Lesley is a Canadian botanist, garden designer and miniaturist.  Not only is her site full of tremendously useful information, but you can buy things there, too: she sells, among other things, beautiful looking ready-made miniature flowers and plants as well as kits (kits!  I love kits!) in 1:12, 1:24 and 1:48 scale.

Now, I'm not a stickler for historical accuracy, but I do like to know the actual history I'm dealing with and which anachronisms I've decided to allow.  I suppose I've decided that, for myself,  willful and conscious  inaccuracy in the service of an artistic vision is to be preferred to smiling but blind ignorance :)  Anyway, that's what I tell myself ...

So, if you care, check out whether that pretty pot of Lavandula angustifolia is appropriate for your Tudor farmhouse (you're fine with lavender any time after the 13th century) or whether a stately Lilium lancifolium is really right for your George II garden (the tiger lily wasn't introduced until 1804, so you're out of luck :)

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* (No they're not :)

Janet Granger needlepoint cushion

A few days ago I received my first order from UK artist Janet Granger, who designs and sells an amazing range of 1:12 scale needlepoint kits for everything from firescreens to rugs to bell pulls.  I had been looking for suitable cushion patterns for the little Queen Anne settee that Kris Compas made for me, and decided to pay for a kit, partly for the convenience, but mostly because I really liked the design.

I ordered "Sophie", a Georgian patterned cushion that I hoped would go well with the pretty fabric that Kris supplied.  It came beautifully packaged with everything required and stitched up quite quickly on 22 count canvas (in spite of my inevitable mistakes).  I think it's even prettier in person than it was on line -- thanks for such a lovely design, Janet :)

I also ordered a Willow patterned bell pull for the new house.  I doubt if bell pulls just like this one were in common use in the early 1700s, and I know for sure that the Willow pattern is later than my period, but I want to have a room dedicated to blue and white export ceramics, and just couldn't resist it! (To hell with rigorous historical accuracy!) It's on 32 count silk gauze, and comes with a cast metal bellpull end.  I'll do this one sometime later, when my eyes are feeling brighter!