Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Mini Mandala Mystery 05 - finished!

I'm definitely on a Chatelaine kick this year. Lots of stitching and lots of finishes! Gotta hurry up since my wife bought me FIVE more Chatelaine charts for my birthday...

As always, the pictures are terrible but I did my best to show a bunch of different angles!





As usual, I made some small changes (beads, threads, blah) so I could use materials from my stash instead of buying anything specifically for this pattern.

I also made a few changes to the design itself. I didn't like the backstitching in the vined corners, so I replaced those with a bicone inside a beaded square. And the tiny square gardens in the corners of the specialty stitch path were a boring solid green, so I replaced them with a mini version of the central motif using Jessica stitches and beads. I think they came out really cute! Oh, and I left out a bunch of random backstitching that didn't add anything to the design.

I'll be going back to Mushroom and Fern Mandala, and maybe working on a couple of smalls by Hands on Design that I barely started if I get tired of fancy stitching. :3

Wednesday, July 04, 2018

Mini Mandala Mystery 05 and felt ornaments!

I haven't been posting recently but I've definitely been stitching! This is Mini Mandala Mystery 05 (aka MMM05) by Chatelaine. Yes, I'm really into Chatelaine this year! I picked up the chart during the recent sale and I'm already pretty close to a finish.

This is a terrible picture as usual. The fabric is Pomona by Chromatic Alchemy. :)


Not cross-stitching, but my wife and I started working on a vintage felt ornament kit (about 40 years old!) that her mom gave to us a while back. The outer package was in terrible condition so I kind of expected the contents to be gross, but it was perfect on the inside!

We made the poinsettia and pear, and they honestly look better than the cover photo. :)


And here are some detailed shots of both sides.


I made felt ornaments from a kit as a kid, and I was surprised that this vintage kit was pretty much exactly the same in terms of materials and construction techniques. I ended up getting a modern kit since we were enjoying these so much, and they're still the same even now. Well, I guess felt ornaments aren't rocket science. :p