Queen Mary doll's house linens by The Old Bleach Linen Company

We have a very small collection of miniature linens made in N.Ireland, housed at our local museum, the Lisburn Linen Centre. I have been meaning to get photos of these for a good while now, finally got around to it. Please excuse the poor quality in my photos, they keep the lighting very, very low to preserve the fabrics.  You can right click on an image and open in a new tab if you want to get a closer look.

The following text is transcribed from the information boards at the display. (everything in "..")

"Doll's houses have always been a toy for the wealthy as well as a plaything for children. One of the best known is Queen Mary's doll's house which was designed for her in the 1920s by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the noted architect. Built in 1/12 scale, the house was furnished throughout by British Craftsmen and manufacturers. The doll's house was intended as a token of national goodwill and to provide a means of raising funds for charity.  For this purpose it was exhibited at the British Empire exhibition in 1934. It is now on display in Windsor Castle."

"Miniature items prepared for Queen Mary's doll's house. 

Woven by The Old Bleach Linen Company, Randalstown, Co. Antrim. 

Given by Mrs C. W. Bingley, London, 1995"

Image courtesy of Oldbleach.co.uk, hope they don't mind me borrowing it... Don't be fooled, our view of the sun rarely looks like that :D

"These linen sheets and pillowcases, diaper and huck towelling and household cloths were for the use of a miniature royal household and it's servants. Those for the personal use of the royal family of dolls had the hand embroidered cypher of George V while the items with the red markings were to be used by the servants of the royal household"

To help with scale, the box is 10 x 3.5 cm.

Bed linen

Bed linen detail

Towels

"These miniature Irish damask tablecloths and napkins were intended for use when the doll royal family held luncheon or dinner parties"

Tablecloth and a box of napkins on the right. These are just beautiful in person!

Tablecloth and napkin. True colour.

You can see the pattern a bit better in this one.

In the comment section, Sharon asked a good question about how these came to be in my local museum and not in the Queen Mary's dollshouse, and wondering about the scale. Unfortunately I had no way of showing scale in the photos, now with dimensions for the box this should help. 

I found two links, which shows that the company sold the miniature household linen to the general public. They used the association with the Queen's dollshouse, as a sort of Royal warrant of appointment, as evidenced on the packaging...."They are made by the Old Bleach Linen co.Ltd of Randalstown,Northen Ireland-who made all the house hold linen for the Queens dolls house-you can always write to them about anything to do with linen" Rather tempted to write to them, if they are still around.

Worth having a look at it, if you are interested in vintage miniatures. 

http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/antique-bleach-pure-linen-towels-219626048

http://www.vectis.co.uk/Page/ViewLot.aspx?LotId=82977&Section=1321

I doubt the damask tablecloths were available to buy, from what I have found online...

Princess Marie Louise 'borrowed' one of King George's despatch boxes to be uncannily reproduced in miniature. She sent a linen tablecloth from Buckingham Palace to Belfast to be copied, and so on.

Thanks Sharon! I'm pleased to have this new information added to the post :)

And I'm away again, I have neglected everyone's blogs, apologies for that, will be back soon! :D 

1:12 Victorian donkey pull toy

I don't intend to have a nursery in my dollshouse, so this will be on show as a vintage ornament. I really like the donkey pull toy in one of my family photographs, so decided to make a miniature one for the house. Didn't quite manage to get the ears and the legs as fine as I would have liked. The donkey is made from fimo, over a tiny wire armature, then flocked with finely cut wool. I used crochet thread for the bridle, reins and edging on the leather saddle, which is all held in place with dots of superglue and pva glue. The wooden base was an offcut, and the wheels are one side of a snap button with the centre filed down to make a hole, a pin then inserted, with the remainder of the pin glued into a small piece of brass tubing acting as the axle.

My great aunt Rita Lynas circa 1905

Close up of the pull toy used as a photograph prop.

4cm high and 3.3 cm long. Actually donkey alone is 3.5cm high. £1 coin for scale.

I put a dot of nail varnish on the eye to give the impression of glass eyes. Very hard to see in photographs.

Brass Bed

This has been a long time in the making and gathering of materials. I had to measure and cut all the tubing by hand with a file, and then mark and drill all the holes by hand. I could not have done this without my vice. I haven't yet worked out exactly how much I spent, probably about £30- £40. It isn't exactly 1:12 scale. It measures 14.5 (l) x 11 (w) x 11 (h) cm. So if in the real world, its just over 5 1/2 feet long. I decided to make it shorter and slightly smaller than a double, but bigger than a single, so it wouldn't cramp the room too much. The materials for the bed frame are brass and copper tubing, angled brass, crimp beads, various metal beads, gold ear bullets, 1:12 scale brass door knobs, 1:12 scale castors and two small turned pieces of brass I bought from a model ship website. It's all held together with tiny copper tubing dowels in hand drilled holes (I used a small drill bit held in an Excel blade handle), using superglue and araldite.  The mattress is also handmade, it had to be, since the bed isn't "standard". I bought the material on Ebay (Piglets Pincushion). It is hand sewn together, stuffed and buttoned ( no buttons though, I used crochet thread). I kept the edges rigid by using lengths of acetate sewn inside, before it was turned inside out for stuffing and "buttoning". 

Bed with wooden posts in the bedroom,(testing the height, before cutting the tubing) which I then later replaced with brass tubing. Waste not, want not, those wooden posts are now being used in the construction of "plaster" brackets for my window ledges.

I've just noticed a bead I forgot to glue in place. 50p for scale.

The bed looks quite short from this angle, but I'm hoping with the right bedding, I should be able to hide that.  

And two chairs for the kitchen...

Two Mini Mundus kit chairs, rejigged, using model ship balusters and stencil stickers, needs a few more coats of paint. The chair back on the right,  unintentionally, looks like a cat. Both the chair pads are made from sample material I bought for 5p each in a market and stuffed with no hole beads.

A few things being worked on.

I have a lot of things being worked on.  These are a few of those things.

The unfinished back door.  Bought online, one of the mass produced doors available, slightly customized. I try to customize anything I  buy, it usually just needs refined.  The door handle I bought from Modelling Timbers website. I used black sticker lines to make the stained glass, and filled in the perspex with clear varnish and acrylic ink, for a glassy effect. The Chinese lantern poking in at the side, I made with etched brass I bought from PPD Ltd, an old light fitting scrap wood and copper rods. Even it isn't  finished, even though its up in its place.

A Dollshouse birdhouse. A dovecote I made from scratch using lollypop sticks, card and  cocktail sticks and a few other odds and ends. I made the ridge tile using card, quite a few jewellery fittings and flocked it with ground up Richard Stacey bricks, the bits left over from the chimney stack. The roof needs a dusting, badly. No birds have moved in yet, though I have two in mind. But they have no feet yet!

Some cushions I made, some with scraps of material I bought at a market. The grey bench cushion hasn't been filled yet. And the bolster on the end is a Janet Granger kit, without its tassels, which I bought to try out needlepoint. I have a Bobbie Schoonmaker Arak Saruk rug kit arriving soon, so I thought I should practice on something small first. Just as well it worked out, as I think the  Bobbie Schoonmaker kit may be stuck in customs, so I can look forward to an additional bill. Then after that, I design and make my own rugs from scratch, because I can't afford them, really. Bench is a kit by McQueenie Miniatures. Excuse the out of scale cat hairs by the armrest. They get everywhere, I think I stitched a few into the bolster also.

The unfinished kitchen, hundreds of hours later

The rooms in the house are roughly 10" wide and 11" deep. The kitchen is nowhere near finished,  yet it is already looking a bit crowded. I have had to make bought furniture a bit smaller here and there. The fridge and the cooker are Phoenix kits. I had to knock part of the side wall down, so the fridge wouldn't look too crowded. That was a fiddly job, since the house is already built, my arm was through the window space to drill and saw at it. I ended up making the sink and stand myself. I couldn't find anything online that could be customized to suit that space in the room. The sink itself is made from Das clay, with a handmade wooden surround topped with a Phoenix water pump, the Rayher mosaic tiles, I got from a craft shop, they were in a sale at 99p a pot, which made those a bargain. The dresser was a popular cheap one I found online. I repainted it, took its feet off, and replaced the drawers and cupboard doors with new detailed ones, made from scratch. I also changed the profile of the upper shelving sides, by filling in the cutaway that was previously there for decoration at either end of the shelves, and adding a deep curve at the base, thanks to my dremel tool. The table is a Mini Mundus kit. I was seriously unhappy with the wood supplied for the top, it was quite a soft wood, not as soft as balsa, maybe bass, so I replaced it with a denser wood cut into planks, with edging.

 A lot of hours spent sanding, painting, adjusting, fitting and glueing together so far!

Richard Stacey gault tiles. I made the little crate under the table with coffee stirrer sticks, I always lift a bundle of those  when I buy an overpriced expensive cup of coffee in town.

View through side window.  A little rodent picture, homage to my first pet rat Amber, who used to hide in that space under the stairs, back in the days when the dolls house wasn't quite as serious. It was made with an old british postage stamp (celebrating the poet Robert Burns - To a mouse) and stuck to a button.

The first thing I made for the kitchen. An industrial style light shade. Made with a 1:12 tin tray, a metal button and some pieces salvaged from the old lighting. The little basket on top of the dresser was a first attempt at basket weaving, using wire and waxed crochet thread. Definitely must find a basket weaving book and make more intricate ones.

My custom made table top, with some of the things bought at the Miniatura show in Birmingham.  Teapot and Charplate are Stokesay Ware, trowel, honey dipper, basting brush, pastry cutter are by Danny Shotton. The spice box is by Susan and Sandy Eismont.

A derelict dolls house

Before

Before

Gutted, and ready to start again.

The Classical dollshouse from the dolls house emporium,  design circa 1990.