I hope that all tatters will consider entering.
Here is some info I gleaned about making miniatures when I wrote my book, "Tatting Tiny Treasures: Miniatures Tatting for Dollhouses."
Miniature Tatting for Doll houses
Many a home is graced by the presence of Victorian style doll houses, country kitchens, one-room scenarios and shadowboxes all filled with tiny treasures. Little toys and tools, plates and silverware, tablecloths and clothing, all made to the scale of 1" = 1’. Delicate glass lamps, tiny books and bibles, rocking chairs and cradles, kitchen tables and four-poster beds made with care and precision decorate the scenes. These graceful furnishings offer an excellent opportunity for enhancement by real tatted lace.
Although bed linens, clothes and tablecloths have often been embellished with crocheted and knitted laces, the tiny threads used in bobbin lace and tatted lace are finer and create items closer in scale to the dollhouse furniture. When selecting a thread, the size depends on the item's use. Most doilies and edgings use size 70, 80 and 100.
In this scene, the rocking chair sits on a mat with a red edging. The doll sits on a pillow with black tatting. (Now I realize the scale is off but this was before I wrote a wrote a book with mini patterns.)The doll dress has green tatting on the cuffs, pink lace on the collar and a pink and green edging appliquéd to the apron. The doll is holding a miniature tatting shuttle of wood and has a ball holder ring with the pink thread in her lap. You can just see a scrap of lace in progress on her left wrist.
In the full photo you may see a Chinese craft doily put to use as a tablecloth. Next to the table on the floor is a sewing basket, a bobbin lace pillow with spangled bobbins, a basket of yarn with a mini bit of knitting with two straight pins as needles. On the mantle is a simple tatted wreath in green with red beads. The candle holders have tatted lace decorations around the base. The 6" tree has simple tatted cloverleaf motifs joined to small beads.
Remember, illusion is the key to creating dollhouse accessories.
Here's the latest article from the Tatting site at BellaOnline.com.
Classic Wheel with half stitches A Classic Wheel featuring the use of half stitches combined with double stitches by Winifred Worth from the Jackson Citizen Patriot published Sept. 28, 1917.
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art302222.asp
Please visit tatting.bellaonline.com for even more great content about Tatting. To participate in free, fun online discussions, this site has a community forum all about Tatting located here -
http://forums.bellaonline.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=39
I hope to hear from you in the new year. Make a resolution to tat every day. Have fun passing this message along to family and friends, because we all love free knowledge!
Georgia Seitz, Tatting Editor http://tatting.bellaonline.com One of hundreds of sites at BellaOnline.com
