My little guy next to a photo of the original rug pattern (5.25 x 3.5 in, 137 x 88 mm)

I wanted to do a “quick” small rug and started this 20th century Anatolian prayer rug design from Meik and Ian McNaughton’s Making Miniature Oriental Rugs & Carpets. Their patterns are charted for 24-count canvas and crewel wool or cotton floss, so mine, stitched on 49-count silk gauze with Gütermann silk, will be about half their projected size of 5.25 x 3.5 in, 137 x 88 mm. But no fringe. I hate fringe.

Of course I had to change up some of the colors. Wanting to emphasize the vitality of the tree of life motif, I added a deep green for the five-stitch leaves, and to carry the “live” through to the red border. My version kind of has a Scandinavian pinecones and twigs-with-leaves thing mixed in with the pomegranates on the tree, but in my worldview, these go together.

The compromised area is just to the right of the lower right creature, past the Greek-looking motif in the red border :(

Started the first of the year, I got sick soon after, and managed to snip a bit of the silk gauze trimming a waste knot :( (I blame the psychotics sold as OTC cold meds.) I carefully stitched the threads in where the tiny cut is, and hope the fusible backing I’ll use to finish it will stabilize it sufficiently. If not, I might need to add a dot of fabric glue or something. It’s not horribly visible, and I’ll just remind the tiny people to take off their shoes and not scuff their feet. Or position an ottoman over the spot. (Haha, see what I almost did there? Ottoman over an Anatolian? Get it? Sorry.) Or maybe just let the hole be, and age the whole rug to historic vintage.