Dragonfly Boudoir Box

This month I started another design from Chatelaine Designs: The Dragonfly Boudoir Casket. It's one of the designs from the so called Designing Ladies. Judy Odell designed and charted the box, and several designers came up with a design for that box. Next to subscribing to the yahoo group from Chatelaine Designs, I also purchased the finishing instructions from Judy Odell.

And I'm impressed about the quality of these instructions. Very detailed. I love it. Judy Odell just published a booklet for several different finishes, and I'm planning to buy this one too. My finishing skills will probably get a good boost from that. And I can surely use that...lol Did you know that Judy Odell is the person who originally invented the flat fold. These days it's a common finishing used by lots of people, and it seems forgotten that Judy invented it couple of years ago.

Anyway, here are couple of pictures of my upcoming Dragonfly Boudoir Box. I'm at the moment busy with the 4 sides. Beads and crystals will be added when all stitching is finished.

First long side



One of the small sides



Second long side

I did change the letters a bit here, the original ones were harder to identify as G and L. I hope with these changes it's a bit easier


Here you can see all 4 sides together. Above there are 4 beads attached. I did that to see how the color changes when I use black Nymo instead of white to attach them. And I have to admit that the color of the beads doesn't improve with black Nymo. I'll do it or with white Nymo or invisible thread (which I deeply dislike...lol)

What else on the stitching front:

My floss tag for another exchange got sent off....and can you imagine, I completely forgot to take a picture. Dohh!!! I really hope that the recipient will provide me with a picture of front and back.

And I stitched and finished a Christmas ornament for another exchange. This will get send off to it's new home begin next month. No picture until it arrives there.


Ohhh....and Michael and I took the opportunity for couple of long hikes. At the moment we're visiting the old Gold Mines here around. And we're totally in awe how these people got the heavy equipment to the mines. You have to climb and hike, and even our dogs are broken afterwards, and only thing we had to carry were backpacks. Can you imagine getting heavy machinery there? Carrying around stones? Steep hills up and down? It's amazing.

Here you can see Mike taking a picture of an oven. This oven was used to create steam for the stamper in order to crush the stones. They then added some chemicals to it which would bind the gold.

And here you can see what the experts think of having a day of hiking

Oh so beautiful

Some while ago I participated in a Christmas ornament exchange from ILCS (I Love Cross Stitch) Yahoo group. It was a real fun exchange with a different twist this time. Everybody who wanted to participate simply had to stitch an ornament and send the ornament and a retour envelope to Rene who is one of the moderators of that group. Rene collected them all, and then sent to each participant one of the ornaments.

Today the mailman brought a small packet from Rene containing the most beautiful Christmas ornament. I got the one that Rene stitched and I LOVE it. Thank you so much Rene. This ornament will get a special place in my tree. It's so beautiful!!! And that red color (Cupid) is already on my list of floss to order. Rene is always good for enabling somehow.

Milady's Needle Quaker Christmas Smalls

Stitched on 32 count Opalescent Raw Linen

with JAR Designs ""Perfect Pine" and Crescent Colours "Cupid"

Stitched by Rene :)

Hawaiian Mandala - Part 11 finished

Weekend here, and I got productive. Mike was working anyway yesterday and I managed to clean the house AND put some extra stitching in. And today I finished part 11 of the Hawaiian Mandala. Only one more part to go!!!! I think the last part will contain some over 1 stitching. The chart calls for over one stitching in the instructions, but none has yet appeared. I don't mind stitching over one anyway. I don't dare to stitch a huge project over one, but smaller projects over one are quite enjoyable.

And a close up :)

Next to stitch will be a Christmas ornament for an exchange and I'm really looking forward to that. :)

Wishing everybody a nice weekend

Update on Hawaiian Mandala

Part 11 of the Hawaiian Mandala got released begin of this month, and obviously that's what I'm stitching on right now. This time the outer border got released and I love it. The color's are vibrant - there is a lot of sparkling braid added - lots of beads too and quite a fair amount of crystals as well. Crystals are not set yet, these will be sown on after the mandala is finished.

But I had to frog a bit too. In the instructions for part 11 Martina wrote that the diagram for the corner eyelet is only schematically and that one should change it to fill in the free space on the fabric. Well, I followed the diagram. It didn't look really bad...but it annoyed me a bit that I had a ring of fabric shown as well. After I had finished more then a quarter of the border (and finally read the instructions...lol) I tried out how both versions look next to each other:



And here before and after in bigger:

Then there was a short period of pouting - which I always do before frogging - in the hope that the problem will evaporate - which miraculously never happens. Anyway, after that I frogged it and fixed it. Personally I think both versions do look nice, but I prefer the more filled up version. In the middle will be a crystal placed and once I laid down couple of crystals just to see how it looks like, the decision was quickly made.

Queen of the Needle finished

2 days ago I finished "Queen of the Needle" from Just Nan. Now I have to find a frame for it, or bring it to the framer. It's stitched using DMC on a hand dyed linen from Sugar Maple Fabrics. It's 28 ct opalescent Cashel linen in the color "Shimmering Powderpuff". I'm quite content how it turned out. This was my first time stitching on opalescent fabric and I didn't like it one bit in the beginning...lol. But after getting used to opalescent material it started to grow on me and in future I will stitch more often on fabric like that. The effect of it is quite worth it (even you can't see it in the picture...lol...it does shimmer nicely)

And another Just Nan design got kitted up: Amethyst Snowflake. That one will be my first SAL ever. Normally once I start something I go on with it. But I would like to try out how I'll like it to stitch every Sunday on a design together with other members from ILCS yahoo group.



I also finished a floss tag, but can't show a picture of it. It's for an exchange and it will get send to it's new home later this month. :)