A Bluestocking Knits

I have been utterly delighted with this piece from start to finish, I admit.  It has always been one of my favorites in Frank Cooper's book — Oriental Carpets in Miniature — and so it was a pleasure to add it to my queue at last, and then to work it, and even better, to have something charming to make in these worrisome times.

Here again is the late 18th-early 19th century original now in the McMullan Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (accession no.1970.302.8) —

I think Cooper did a fine job here, reducing and (necessarily) simplyfing the design without losing any of its charm.  It is my good luck that he worked his version on 18-count canvas, and that converting that to 40-count silk gauze — which was only a matter of my using a different fiber, one strand of DMC floss instead of Paternayan crewel wool, and converting the colors — makes the rug a more-delicate scale for 1:12 miniatures, and very like the original proportions of a prayer rug.

For colors, I used these —

• dark blue 3750
• medium blue 931
• light blue 3752
• ivory 3033
• red 815
• green 523
• gold 680
• yellow 422
• coral 3722

The green and light blue are very pretty but together their value is so similar that it isn't easy to distinguish them, so perhaps a darker green might have been better — though on the whole, I don't think it spoils the effect at all.

I worked mine in continental stitch, which I find makes a neater back and an all-around more pleasant experience than working half-cross in tiny scales!

This has always been meant to have pride of place in the carpet shop, so the next thing is to install it!