Here is a first look at Medieval Town Mandala:

(The fabric doesn’t really have that pinkish tinge. It’s the same Lambswool Aida I used for MMM-03.)

I finished the gold border this morning and I’m working on the flowers around it.

Yet another cotton conversion, this one for Chatelaine’s MTM. I’ve started stitching it, though it’s going a little slow due to spraining my right thumb falling on an icy driveway

On the left is the color that Martina calls for in the pattern. On the right is my conversion.

• NPI – 481 DMC 598
• NPI – 483 DMC 3844
• NPI – 487 Anchor 170
• NPI – 489 Anchor 164
• Thread Gatherer Silk ‘n Colors 002 Autumn Foliage – DMC 4140 Driftwood (center block) or 4130 Chilean Sunset (rooves)
• TG SnC 055 Camouflage – Weeks Dye Works 2201 Moss
• TG SnC 106 Lavender Haze – WDW 2334 Lilac
• TG SnC 161 Bear Brown – Crescent Colors La Tierra
• TG SnC 975 Meadowgrass – DMC 94
• TG Silk Perle 012 Vintage Brown – Carrie’s Double Fudge Brownie
• Caron Waterlilies 078 Pearl – DMC 4160 (Glistening Pearl)
• Waterlilies 94 Lemon Meringue – WDW 1113 Moonglow
• Waterlilies 182 Graphite – WDW 1298 Gunmetal
• Waterlillies 171 Caramel – WDW 1131 Peach
• Gloriana 017 Deep Blue Sea – WDW 2149 Peacock
• Gloriana 108 Monet’s Green Pond – Gentle Arts Sampler Thread Sea Spray
• Glorianam Luminescense – WDW 4139 Bethlehem

For any silks not listed, I’m using the DMC conversions suggested by Martina. I’m using the metallics and beads as called for, but playing a little with the crystals.

I also finished MMM-03. I love the colors in this so much!

For the reddish beads in the corners, I used some metallic beads turned on their sides. I copied another lady from the Chatelaine boards and used the darker of the two varigated blues for the outer border, instead of the light color.

This past weekend I bought the pattern for Medieval Town Mandala and started stitching it on the same fabric I used for MMM-03. When I finish the larger piece, the two will get matching frames.

I’ve gotten quite a bit done on Victorian recently. Now that I’m done with Celtic (which should be back from the framer any day now), it’s been my main focus recently.

North house:

East house:

The houses are identical except for the stitching in the large and small windows.

And part 8 of the corner between the two:

My Celtic Garden Mandala is finished!!!

The one color change I made in this part was to do the outer borders of the ornaments in DMC 4130 instead of a solid red. To “sign” the piece, I put my initials inside one ornament:

As for the new start, it is Mini Mystery Mandala 3 (otherwise known as MMM-03). I love the colors in this and it’s a small version of the next Chatelaine I’ll be doing, Medieval Town.

I’m using the suggested DMC conversion for the solids, Dinky Dye cottons, and Weeks Dye Works Moss in place of Thread Gatherer Camouflage. I bought the bead pack, but not the crystals. In this part, I used the light blue Petite Braid leftover from Celtic to stitch eyelets in place of the crystals.
The fabric is 16 ct. lambswool Aida (which I’ll also be using for the larger design).

One of my goals for 2008 was to finish stitching the top half of Dragon Fae 1 from Heaven and Earth Designs (charted from a painting by Selina Fenech). I completed that goal today! She is stitched on 25 count lugana, 1 over 1. I’m doing half-stitches for the background, to soften it a little.

Another of my goals for the year finished! I completed my version of Blackstone Fantasy Garden from Ink Circles:

The blues are HDF silks from Vikki Clayton (light is Yonder Sky and dark is Zaffre Cobalt) and the metallics are various colors of Kreinik and Petite Treasure Braid. They don’t show up well, but there are a few different shades of whites and silvers.

I haven’t had time to get this to the framer yet. I want to try a place a block from where my job is headquartered, instead of Michaels. Hopefully I can get there sometime this week.

Next I need to finish my Chatelaine Celtic Garden Mandala. I’m halfway through the border!

Once again, I’m behind in posting updates.  I completed part 11 of the Celtic Garden Mandala in November, but then forgot to put it on here.

Here is one corner:

I had a hard time figuring out which color to use for the red dividers.  Martina suggested DMC 350 as the subsitute, but it seemed just a bit too bright, so I went one shade darker to 349.  Now that I’m doing the ornaments that go in between those dividers, I think 350 would have looked better.  Oh well, I’m not frogging the darn things!

This morning on the way to work I overheard a young man commenting to his friend  that there have been some movies with black men as President.  I thought about this and the fact that casting a black (or a woman) as President is sometimes used to give the movie a futuristic element.  It divorces the story from reality and makes it clear that this is a fictional work.

But no more! 

I guess now some Asian actors will get their turn to play the Presidential role.

I forgot to post this a couple weeks ago:

I made one big mistake on this part, though it really isn’t obvious. As I was finishing the first corner, I realized my fabric was turned 90 degrees and therefore all the x’s were going the wrong way. I didn’t want to frog it, so I decided to just do all the corners the same way. I’ll go back to the original direction for the rest of the piece.