I had a great time working on these three designs as they were a bit out of my comfort zone when it comes to colors. I generally like pastel colors but so many rugs use reds that I decided to try my hand at them.
The Ingrid rug was designed after a 100 year old Persian Kashan rug. I liked the many elements that this rug included. This rug truly showed a picture instead of only having repeated elements. Geraldine was also inspired by an antique rug photo that I found. There was so much going on in this rug that I had a great time trying to re-create it in miniature. It incorporated some of the lighter colors that I love with the darker reds that are so common in antique rugs. Glenda was fashioned after a traditional Azerbaijani carpet. The bold pattern is very indicative of this style of carpet and was a joy to work on.
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With these three rugs, I explored using softer colors instead of some of the bolder colors I have used in the past.
The Ella rug has been made up completely in my imagination. I was out for lunch one day with my Grandmother and noticed a knitted sweater she was wearing. One of the patterns on it inspired me to create the flower border. I started this rug with the border first and worked my way inwards. I find I often do this so that my rug will be the dimension I have chosen and I make the center fit the border size I have chosen. Because I created a flower border for the outer one, I also used flowers on the next inner border. This border represents flowers on a table in each corner with the trailing flowers connecting to the next flowerpot. Since the borders were so ornate and will be a challenge to stitch, I chose to create a fairly simple center. I wanted to have a diamond-style pattern but once I had put the diamond shapes in, felt it needed "a bit more". Therefore, I modified the diamonds and came up with this final pattern. It was interesting to design and I look forward to stitching it someday. Jasmine was inspired by another Aubusson style rug that I saw. I wasn't able to incorporate all of the elements I saw in that rug and changed some others to suit my fancy. It is designed in very soft shades as well. Alicia was first inspired by an embossed design on the cover of a book for the border. I also found an interesting Celtic knot design that I liked and decided to play around with it to create the center motif. Once I finished the center Celtic design, I felt it looked a little sparse so I created the circular motifs from a Celtic circular tattoo that I once saw. My original design used softer colors but I included other color ideas in the chart as well. While stitching my rugs and working on my current dollhouse, I have been continuing to design rugs. Sometimes the creative juices start flowing and I stop everything else for days while I design something. I often see a photo of a rug on Pinterest that sparks my interest in design and I have to get my ideas down before I forget them.
The Deborah rug is based on a Chinese rug idea. I found a photo of a small Antique Chinese Nazimal rug and stretched it out to make a larger, more rectangular rug. Since the original colours were shades of blues, they fit in with my current obsession for blue and white. The Nala rug was inspired by a Marble Mosaic floor picture that I saw. I couldn't believe it was done in marble and felt it would make a perfect rug. I found out through research, that the marble floor was designed from a rug so I have just re-designed it as a miniature rug! I didn't change anything on this design as the lines flowed so well and everything was so well laid out. It was a joy to work on. Getting back to my obsession with blue and white, I couldn't resist working on the Portia rug. It too, is a fairly accurate rendition of an antique rug that, when I researched it, said it was an example of an Arraiolos rug made in Arraiolos, Portugal. I am constantly browsing the internet to find new (to me) antique rug styles that I like. These three are all so vastly different but each called to me. So far, I don't think I have found any one style of rug that I like better than another. Often, I will find a picture of an antique rug and use some elements of them and alter others to make them fit the area of the rug better.
My Katy rug is based on an Aubusson style rug. I embellished the designs quite a bit in this rug and only the basic outline remains of the original antique rug I fashioned this after. I also had difficulty choosing what color scheme I liked the best so I kept them all! I liked the long, diagonal stripes that I saw in the antique rug that inspired my Nadine rug and decided to try my best to work around that design. It, also, was an Aubusson style rug but the border reminded me of Chinese patterns. The original was in shades of brown, but I liked reds and golds for mine. I love blues in a rug for some reason and really liked working on the Hermione rug as it used only shades of blue and white in the design. It is patterned after an antique Chinese rug. Sometimes, the designs are done such that it repeats every quarter of the rug. When this happens, I can simply chart 1/4 of the rug then flip the design into each of the other quarters of the rectangle. This helps me to decide on the final size of the rug. Sometimes I think I will be working on a 4" x 6" rug and by the time I am done, have to add more rows and suddenly it is a 5" x 7" rug. Whatever the size of the rug, each new rug presents new challenges that I love to work out. Sometimes I am inspired to create and it comes together quickly. Other times I have to sit with it for a few days (or weeks) until I am satisfied with the design. Each new rug instills a new excitement in me and I can't wait to see it evolve. When designing my rugs, I often look to various things for my inspiration. It may be an antique rug as was the case with my Gloria design or the covers of books, which was the case with my Libby design. My Leah rug was inspired by circular antique rugs and blended with colors to match my Amanda rug.
Sometimes, an idea calls to me and I can't wait to design it. My Libby is one of those. I saw the basic design embossed in gold on the cover of a book, then drew the center motif to go with it. The curves of both complemented each other well. The border was inspired by some lace that I had and the motif in the corners reminded me of the fleur-de-lis seen so often in France. Probably, the hardest part of any design, is choosing the colours. All of my patterns are designed with DMC colours so I purchased a DMC color card made with real threads to help me with this. I first choose colours that look good to me on the computer and design with those. Of course, the computer colour never looks like the real thing, so once I am done with the design, I look carefully at them all on my colour card. Often, what looks good together on the computer, also looks good in real-life but sometimes the colours or shades are too close together and get lost beside each other. At times you want this to happen when you are shading something, but many times you don't, so I change the colour to something similar. My daughter, Cheryl, is very good helping me when I get stuck on a colour. I also downloaded a colour wheel to help me choose complimentary colours. I have also found when designing my rugs, that I am more comfortable designing shapes and curves than flowers, so I began focusing on those. I will still do flowers from time to time, but will begin focusing on non-flower rugs for the most part. There are times that I find designing to be very relaxing and therapeutic. When I find myself awake in the wee hours of the morning, I can design and help myself relax.
When designig this rug, I couldn't decide which color scheme I liked the best so kept them all! The Corina Rug has 6 different color options included in the pattern so that anyone who purchased the pattern could see how it would look with another color and customize it for themselves. Maybe they could be inspired to try another color altogether. The possibilities are endless! This one was inspired by a photo an antique rug I saw. I particularly liked the border and felt that it was fancy enough that the center should be fairly plain. As I became more familiar with my new design program, I ventured into creating more complex rugs. These three rugs were inspired by photos of antique rugs.
Denise is a very intricate rug and I look forward to stitching it someday. When I design my rugs, I choose a set of colors that, to me, look good on the screen. Once I am done designing it, I then turn to my DMC color chart and carefully check each color to make sure it doesn't clash with any of the ones that will be around it. I change colors as needed and sometimes enlist the help of Cheryl, who has an art degree and understands the color wheel so much better than I ever will! 🙂 I also try to make sure that colors don't get lost when stitched next to another color. Sometimes a color can have the same shading intensity as another and, therefore, disappears beside the other color. At times, a life sized rug is too intricate to translate completely into a miniature rug so I eliminate some of the elements to make room for some of the others. Here are some of my first designs, started when I first recieved my computer design program. It took awhile to learn how the program worked but I caught on eventually. When I first started designing rugs, I used a picture of graph paper and painstakingly colored each square on my computer. I then found out about a program that was specifically used to design for Cross Stitch and my creative process became so much easier after that!
All of my designs are suitable for 1:12th scale dollhouse projects when stitched on 40 count silk gauze. However, they would be suitable for any scale depending on the size of gauze you choose to use. Inspirations for these rugs came from photos of antique rugs. Amanda is done in the Aubusson style, while Belinda is in the Scandanavian style. So far, most of my rugs and cushions are designed for 40 count silk gauze because this is the one I am most comfortable working on. I may start designing for other counts of gauze later as I begin to stitch on them. As a teenager, I discovered a love of stitching and taught myself Cross Stitching. I spent many happy hours stitching beautiful pictures from kits. A few years ago I attended a Miniature show in Toronto, Ontario and saw the most beautiful dollhouse rug, stitched in miniature! That sparked a journey into miniature stitching. I was no longer content to stitch from a kit and wanted to design my own rugs. I began designing in 2018 and soon realized that I was designing faster than I could stitch!
I was having so much fun designing both dollhouse rugs and cushions that I opened an online store with my daughter Cheryl to share our creations. To purchase any of my patterns, please visit Double the Fun Crafts at https://doublethefuncrafts.etsy.com Please join me while I blog about the rugs I have designed and stitched. I hope to enjoy stitching for many years to come. 🙂 |
AuthorMy name is Yvette, and I will be writing this blog to tell you about the creative process that has gone into the creation of my Petitpoint patterns along with showing the stitching I have done of some of the rugs. Archives
March 2024
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