Mushroom and Fern Mandala - post #2

After taking a little break to work on Dream of the Sea, I bounced right back to Mushroom and Fern Mandala. It's so much fun because there are lots of little details in each area, so if I get tired of one type of stitch, it's easy to move on and do something completely different.

As you can see, I'm really bouncing all over! The heavy backstitching around the central medallion is going to be the most challenging part, so I'm taking lots of breaks to work on the border outside of that area. There's so much variety!

I've also decided to couch the curly light green ferns and the pale blue scrollwork in the points of each diamond instead of backstitching them. I don't like the look of backstitching with heavy thread at all, and it's especially bad with light threads on a darkish fabric like this. Unfortunately, it's very time consuming and it's so easy to make mistakes or tangle up the threads. Oh well, as long as it gets done eventually, it's fine. :)

This will continue to be my focus so I'm sure my next update will be more of the same! Might even start adding some beads since I never leave them until the end on a Chatelaine. I love beading but I think even my brain would explode if I tried to do it all at once!