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Dollshouse Embroidery Kits
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A world of my own |
[Based on an article in Jane Greenoff's CrossStitch magazine, issue 20, August/September 2001] | |
| Janet Granger always wanted her own doll's house, but she had to wait until she was 20 years old to get it! |
Janet says "Many of William Morris' carpets feature intertwining
foliage and this one is no exception. The border has twisting acanthus leaves punctuated
with tiny flowers."
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| When Janet was small, she wasn't allowed to play with her sister's doll's house, now she's making up for lost time. She owns a Georgian style townhouse, and is now on to decorating the attics. "I used to make more for it," says Janet, "but the business doesn't leave me so much time these days." | ||
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| Janet started stitching at four, when her grandmother gave her mother a bundle of embroidery threads. "Nan was much more 'crafty' than Mum", Janet explains, and Janet got to play with the silks - "so I was stitching before I went to school." Of course she makes the carpets and other stitchy bits for her house, but she doesn't stop there. "I've made my own furniture and food and dressed dolls. I've even tried miniature flower-making, though if you cough the whole plant is gone!" she laughs. | "You do learn a lot about styles and what's right for each era." At secondary school Janet's talent for languages meant she was steered in an academic direction. "I wasn't allowed to do woodwork because I wasn't a boy," she states, "and I later found out that this meant I couldn't train to be an architect, which was the career I wanted to follow." She was so annoyed she left school and started work in a library "I did it (and hated it) for 17 years!" she says, "and got stuck in a dreadful rut." | Eventually Janet met and married Chris, a science teacher, and Janet decided to go part-time and start up a business. She combined her love of stitching and miniatures to form a company specialising in miniature kits, and just two years later, Chris joined her. "We each have our own areas", says Janet, "Chris looks after the computer side of things and the website; I do the designing and kit making. Things like the copy for advertising we argue out between us, word by word!" |
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| One of the best things about working for herself is the flexibility. "If it's a nice day I can work in the garden, and then see to the business in the evening." |
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Stitching choice What would Janet do if she had to choose between stitching and miniatures? "If I really had to choose, I'd go for stitching. I can manage without making something small, but I always have to have stitching on the go." |
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Over the years Janet has tried lots of different styles. 'I've recently made an
embroidered Elizabethan box lid, with different surface stitches and gold thread. I
hadn't done some of the stitches for 20 years so I had to learn them all over again! It
made a change from cross stitch - last year I made a bellpull which took ages. I used to
do patchwork and quilting, but I gradually did more needlepoint as the models for the
business needed stitching. Sometimes I'll send them out to be stitched, but I can tell
when I'm designing if it's going to be a good one, because when I reach a particular
point I think 'I would like to stitch this one!'
Do it on purpose! Janet really likes stitching with a purpose -"otherwise things hang on the wall in the bedroom and no one |
else sees it!". She thinks it's why she makes carpets, bellpulls and needlework
stands for her own range. "Three dimensional things can be more interesting for
people to make -and you get a double kit!" She adds mischievously, "I like to
make people do things the way I like to do them!" "Sometimes all the
limitations of doing tiny things really get on my nerves - you can only hint at the shape
of a flower, because it's only seven stitches wide! Sometimes I'd like to do things on 48
count, so that it could still be small but also very detailed. You can't go for 30
colours and lots of realism at this scale, so I've become great at hinting!"
Miniature madness Janet goes to both stitching and miniature fairs, and says the differences are interesting. "Stitchers tend to know what they |
like and stick to it, whereas miniaturists are more eccentric and will have a go at
anything to get the look they want, such as learning how to make silverware. "It can
be difficult to get people to look at what you're doing, so we do demonstrations."
Chris can stitch too, so he often demonstrates as stitching men get a bigger crowd!" Janet and Chris love their garden, and if she wasn't doing what she is now, she'd like to run a nursery. "I've got loads of plants. I'm learning about perennials, and keep thinking 'Oh, I didn't realise that it would grow that big, I'll have to move it!' We go to a big garden centre once or twice a year It's very expensive, as I only stop when I can't get any more plants in the car. As long as we can see to drive I don't care!" |
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"I'm also trying to do an Open University degree, and I've just got one year left to go. It's hard to stay indoors and study, but I'm doing sociology, media studies, and social policy, so it's nice as it's so different from the business. I write easily, and my essays are often too long so I must admit to cheating a little on the word counts!" |
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I'm not sure how Janet manages to look after her cottage garden and 16-year-old silver tabby Gizmo (Janet says "if anyone gets a kit with a bit of fluff in, we're sorry!") as well as do a degree and run a business! She's obviously a very organised lady, with a real talent for the tiny. |
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| Janet's Loves and Hates | |
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Best piece of equipment:
My husband used to be a science teacher and so he's very good at inventing things! My favourite is the skein winder he made for me as it saves me hours of winding thread by hand. I name everything, and as it's home-made and doesn't have a 'proper' name, I named it Wilbert! Most hated piece of equipment: It's my printer. We have three, and one is really awful. Sometimes I could cheerfully throw it out of the window! Favourite own design: I always think 'oh, this one's my favourite' when I'm working on a design, and then the next one comes along and becomes my favourite instead! I do particularly like the carpets, especially 'Elizabeth' (click to see it), based on a William Morris 'Hammersmith' carpet. Favourite design subject: I think I'd have to say William Morris designs are my favourite, I love the Arts and Crafts period. |
Biggest disappointment:
We try to be positive, but our worst moment was when we had a leaflet produced 'professionally'. We spent our first year's profit on it, and they did it all wrong (36 spelling mistakes on four pages!). We spent months without a catalogue and I had to write letters explaining why. It's the only time the business has made me cry! Most amusing Incident: At the spring Cross Stitcher and Needlecraft show a couple of years ago lots of people were passing the stall making comments like 'Ooh, it would do your eyes in wouldn't it, the kits are so small'. So we printed out a card like a sight test, saying 'If you can read this you can definitely do one of our kits'! We got a lot of giggles after that. Ambition: I think I've achieved it, for the moment. I wanted to balance my life so I enjoyed working without it being too work dominated, and I've done it! I also really want to finish my degree next year. |
