The Den of Slack

emilymorganti.com

Page 37 of 235

Mudjar petit point carpet

I haven’t started the second version of the Kashkuli carpet yet — first I wanted to finish a rug that I put aside when I started the Kashkuli. This design is from the book Oriental Carpets in Miniature by Frank M. Cooper. It’s stitched over one on 36-count linen, for a finished size of about 4.5″ x 6.75″.

Here’s what the book says about this design:

The spelling of the name of the town from which this rug came varies depending on the book you are reading or the map you are studying: Mujur, Mudjur, Mudjar—take your choice. I adapted this design from an illustration in the book Oriental Carpets by Ulrich Schurmann, and so I really should spell it his way, which is Mujur, but so many books and maps use the spelling Mudjar that I have decided to go with the majority.

The colors in Mudjar rugs are more varied than in others of Anatolian origin. In this design, you find mauve, pink, blue, green, and shades of yellow, which you may not find combined in other rugs from this area.

The series of prayer arches depicted in this rug is very rare to find. The original rug dates from the first part of the nineteenth century, and is in a private collection. The original rug, from which this design is adapted, measures 42 1/4 x 59 3/4 inches.

Continue reading

Victorianna — attaching the flat roof

Before I could glue in the Victorianna’s flat roof, I had to finish a few things in the master bedroom and bathroom that would be too hard to reach once the roof was on, starting with the bedroom closet.

As a reminder, here’s how the closet looks inside. You can read more about the creation of this closet here and here.

And here it is with the door on. Though the door opens and closes, it doesn’t close smoothly — it gets stuck halfway closed. To close it the rest of the way, I have been reaching down from above and holding on to the top of the closet with my fingers while pushing the door into a flat position with my thumb. I can’t do that once the ceiling is on, so this may well be the last we ever see of the inside of this closet.

On the other side of the wall, in the master bathroom, I added shelves to the shower. First I glued on these shampoo bottles and soap in a dish. I should have added labels first but I was impatient to get this done, and finding/resizing/printing labels seemed like a big chore at the time. (The lack of labels will probably annoy me forever…)

I glued in the top shelf first, with a spacer below it to hold it at the right height.

Then I glued in the bottom shelf the same way.

Done! In hindsight I wish I had added grout to the seams where the shower walls and floor meet each other. Oh well.

I also made a little towel holder to go near the sink. The round part is half of a toggle clasp. I stuck a head pin through the hole, with crimp beads on either side to keep the pin from slipping out. The towel is a piece of a baby washcloth from the dollar store.

I used the micro drill to make a hole in the side of the linen closet. (This would have been easier if I’d done it before I glued in the closet…)

Before gluing in the roof, I cut trim pieces to go over the door and around the linen closet. This would have been much harder to do with the ceiling in place.

I actually did all of this prep work almost a year ago, before packing up the Victorianna so Geoff could renovate my workshop. Now that the flat roof is ready, I can finally glue it on. I applied The Ultimate super glue to the tops of the walls and back roof.

Continue reading

Victorianna – preparing the flat roof

Goal: I’m going to finish the Victorianna in 2020. I think I’ve said that for the past three years, but this time I mean it!

I haven’t really worked on the Victorianna since early 2019, when I finished the kitchen and updated the second floor bathroom. I packed it up when Geoff redid my workshop in March, and when I moved everything back into the workshop four months later, it was hard to get back into it.

After my October 2018 post about shingles, I continued shingling the front and started the back. I was getting to the point where I needed to attach the roof. And this is when things got complicated.

Normally the Victorianna (which is a long-discontinued half scale version of Greenleaf’s McKinley) has two gables in the attic, with the roof sloping down between them.

I modified it to make the center portion flat. This makes the third floor space more usable. I have a master bedroom on one side, and a master bathroom and nursery on the other side.


With the roof pieces in place, the rooms are pretty dark, so I decided to add skylights. The smaller ones on the sloped roof are hinged windows from Miniatures.com and the big ones are large cottage windows from Dollshouse Emporium.

I made the sloped part of the roof from a piece of basswood (same thickness as the kit wood) and Geoff cut the larger piece out of 1/4″ plywood. I can’t remember why we used that size, maybe just because it’s what we had.

I planned all of this out back in 2017 and although I wasn’t exactly sure how the pieces would fit together, I figured I’d make it work when the time came. But as I progressed with the shingles, I started anticipating problems.

Continue reading

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2025 The Den of Slack

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑