Finally! Part four is finished! These garden medallion/peacock roost/thingamabobs are gorgeous, and I’m so glad to be done with them.
One more pair of peacocks, and this mandala will be halfway complete.
The first pair of peacocks is finished!
It feels great to finally stitch a pair of peacocks. As with all the other parts of the chart, there’s an amazing amount of detail. I still have so much to do on the overall mandala, but the beauty of the finished sections make the effort well worth it.
Another motivator to finish: the upcoming Chinese Garden Mandala in April. After eagerly following all the design details as they’re currently being revealed on Facebook and the Châtelaine message board, I’m pretty sure I’m in for this one.
Have a great weekend!
I worked a little on CJC #9, the Rose Mosaic needle roll:
After that, I felt motivated to pick up the Peacock Garden Mandala and have another go at it. With such a large project, when inspiration strikes, you run with it! I stitched enough of one area that I could reward myself with a pair of peacocks. Pictures soon, I hope. I’m working on all the tail feathers right now, and I’m not sure how long it will take to finish those.
Have a great week!
Before the year ends, here’s a look at the WIPs I’m still working on:
Three Friends by The Drawn Thread.
Recently I took this one with me to work on while babysitting a friend’s children. They were supposed to be asleep when I arrived, but the three year-old girl was still awake. When she saw my stitching bag, she got out of bed several times during the evening to look at the chart, the panels I had finished, and all the silk colors. Finally she said, “I can’t sleep because your thread is too pretty.” I couldn’t agree more; many a late night stitching session has been inspired by such feelings.
Two panels remain to be stitched, and it seems to take me about one week to stitch a panel, so this one could be done soon. Then it needs to be finished into a stitching folder.
Peacock Garden Mandala by Châtelaine Designs.
I’m still soldiering away on part 4. It’s like yard work; I spend hours on it, and can’t see any progress. That’s discouraging, but I know if I keep at it, even little by little, eventually this part will be finished. On the bright side, this is by far the largest installment in the twelve-part series, so once it’s done, the other sections should go much more quickly. I’d like to finish this in 2011. There are several other Châtelaine mandalas I’d like to start, but I think I had better stick with working on one mandala at a time. It’s a good incentive to finish.
Hardanger doily in Diana Hardanger magazine.
This one is my current “waiting room” project – any time I’m waiting for an appointment, I can take it out and work on a few eyelets. (There are a lot of eyelets in this design.) I want to finish this one by next summer so there’s no rush, but even so I’d like to move this out of the waiting room and give it a higher priority, just to make sure it gets done.
So that’s the status of my 2010 projects still in progress. As if that were not enough …
Crazy? Oh, yes. But I’ve joined Risti Pisto Hassutus 2011, the Crazy January Challenge: begin a new project every day between January 1 – 15, and finish all fifteen projects during 2011. It will be a great way to finally get around to those projects I was so eager to have … at least that’s what I keep telling myself. Usually I prefer to have only a couple of projects in progress so we’ll see how this goes. Now to decide what to stitch. I’m tempted to load up with easy smalls and be done with it, but I’d really like to work on a variety of projects to keep it interesting and, well, a challenge. Since one of the goals is stash reduction, my list will be confined to projects already kitted up; no extra trips to the LNS. I think I can come up with fifteen different designers. What surprises lurk in my stash and what will make the list?
Time for a status report: the second and third installments of this mandala were relatively small, which was a nice break. This picture also shows just a tiny bit of the fourth part.
To bead or not to bead? Usually I wait until the end of a project to add the beads, but given the size of this mandala and the large amount of beading to do, after much deliberation I chose to bead as I go. So far it hasn’t been a problem but we’ll see if the beads get in the way as I work on future sections of the chart.
Part 4 looks like it’s going to take a long time (but so pretty! Just wait and see!) and Part 5 should be available in about a week. I’m going to keep working on Part 4 but realistically there’s no way it will be done before I get Part 5. But if Part 5 is small, maybe I can catch up in time for Part 6.
Phew! The beading took several days, but part one is finally done! It seems like pictures never do justice to these Châtelaines; the beads and crystals are so sparkly. At least the photo gives some idea of the lush colors and silks. I decided to stitch this design on Fairy Dust Belfast linen, which is actually a little more peachy-yellow than shows up in this picture. It’s a neutral color with a hint of warmth to make the bright greens and blues really pop.
On to the next chart! It looks like part two will stitch up faster than part one, so maybe there is hope of catching up some day.
Plenty of stitching going on, but no pictures to show yet. I finished my exchange for the Just Nan Junction blog and it’s on its way to my exchange partner. I hope she likes it; I’ll post more details and photos once I hear that it has arrived.
Progress on the JOB accessories continues: the scissor fob is stitched and the scissor case is half done. My supplies arrived for the Peacock Garden Mandala, so I’m looking forward to beginning it soon.
I’m excited to be so close to done! Meanwhile, I gave in to temptation and signed up for the gorgeous Peacock Garden Mandala. This Mandala Garden is a “mystery” project, which means that the chart parts are given out in monthly installments … but if you’d like to take a peek at the entire design, check out the Châtelaine bulletin board preview post.
The Peacock Garden started in January and its chart will be distributed through the associated Yahoo Group during 2010. It will probably be a month before I can buy the kit, which should give me enough time to stitch up the final JOB pieces and finish them as a hopefully-not-too-lopsided octagonal box.
