Nicci Lambright is a special education teacher right now, finishing her Ph.D. in Psychology, and hoping to find a fulltime university teaching position soon. With her background in education and psychology, she had no formal training in the miniature field, but that hasn’t stopped her from becoming self-taught in everything she’s learned about making miniatures. She always has loved tiny things, and when she received a doll’s house as a present for her twelfth birthday, she was hooked. She subscribed to doll’s house magazines, and spent hours pouring over them.
In her search for information, Nicci had found a vintage cross stitch book featuring charming houses, and she thought it might be fun to make a 3D cross stitched house. Once she had made the exterior, she decided to try the interior, which also turned out well, and furniture to match was next. Nicci’s bright, embellished piece turned out to be her delightful Small Stitches in 1/48th scale. All her own work, the entire colourful and whimsical piece was made from scratch, with the full interior design and furniture made from patterns she created herself.
Materials used were 14 count mesh plastic canvas and embroidery thread for the house, the interior, and all of the furniture. The base is craft foam, and thin ribbon lines the top edges where the roof meets the house. She used graph paper to draw out the pattern for the interior and the furniture pieces, then cross stitched the design on plastic canvas. Each wall was created individually, then sewn together at the edges. The roof was stabilised in the centre with a toothpick, and the house was super-glued to a small piece of craft foam.
Describing her process, Nicci exclaimed, “It was trial and error! The hardest part about making this miniature was that the furniture required me to hold all the tiny pieces, attempt to sew them together, then star t over when it all fell apar t! After a few practice pieces, I finally got a feel for how the pieces needed to be put together, and it went smoothly from there.”