A challenge

This is a rare type of blog - my second in one day! But there won't be many like that. I did the sewing blog today but I have been making the quilt for over a week and it is nowhere near finished as it has been interupted by illness and boredom, and I really don't want the blogs to be in the wrong order. You see, I made three items of furniture last night - insommnia strikes again! and to be able to write this blog I had to sneak the sewing one in before!

I mentioned before wanting the bedroom done but do not have the right stain. I do have the right stain (indian rosewood) for the craft room so thought I would get started on furniture for that. I have been reading the books that Gil very kindly lent me and one features an art room. I really liked the work table and chair and I knew I wanted a bookcase in the room...



I got greedy I am afraid and decided that while I am cutting out one piece of furniture why not cut out two?...why not do three?

I found some banister rods that would make perfect chair legs, had some toothpicks and some wood to cut out. I cut out all the parts for the table and then designed a bookcase based on a store display cabinet in the book. I am getting more confident at manipulating the designs I am finding. Knowing that the basic shape is 1/12 gives my imagination the freedom to create what I want. I would be too unsure of sizes to design from scratch....I saw a cabinet in the film "The devil wears prada" which I loved and want for the sitting room...I know I can take the basic shape design of the kitchen dresser and by adding on cupboard doors instead of shelves I can have that cabinet featured in the film.

So all cut out and ready to go....



Staining is soooo messy and as yet I haven't found a clean and tidy way to do it. All I can do is just make sure I don't ruin our dining table with it!



All stained and drying...



I think I might leave it till tomorrow...but I find I am still unable to sleep so am getting on with the seat padding while watiting for the furniture to dry.

I find a lovely dusky rose material in the material bag...it is perfect for the craft room that has cream wallpaper with tiny rose coloured flowers. I cut out two pieces of card for the back and one for the seat. Cut some wadding for one of the back pieces and for the seat and glue the material to all of the pieces of card, securing with pegs.



I plan to join the two back pieces together and glue them and the seat to the chair. When I did stick the two chair cushion parts together there was a very large gap along the seam despite the edges having been held togther by pegs. Once the glue had dried I sewed the edges togther and was very impressed at the final finish - I think you can barely see that it was originally in two parts.



I also did some very tiny stitches in the seat padding to emphasise the padding in the chair..although you can't see it very well from this picture




I decided to make the seat backing mainly because after I had cut out the back of the seat, I decided I didn't like it very much and I couldn't be bothered to cut out another!



Making the chair - very very difficult. Getting the toothpicks stuck on is a nightmare.



Making the table - again very hard to do. The legs were determined to be wonky!



Making the bookcase - slightly easier



All done!



WOW! so much furniture! I just had to do some room layout pictures. This is not how the room will be...I just put most of the finished items in there so I could see what a room might look like. What it will actually be like in the end is very much chaos...work surface covered and paper on the floor, lots of books around and generally representing how I work...in total mess! But until that is done have a sneak peek at what a room in my dolls house could look like.....