MTM center area framed!

| chandabelle

I decided I was never going to finish Medieval Town Mandala in its current state. After it got stained with wood varnish, then had the stains removed by bleaching, then was tea stained to hide the bleached areas… it simply lost its antique white and blues crisp prettiness. The tea staining meant the colours of the center part would be darker than the rest and not as bright. Which would require a further tea staining at the end. I didn’t like how the fabric and threads looked after staining. Add that to the fact that I was not sure how the fabric would survive all the rough handling, I lost any desire to finish it.

I ripped out the unfinished section, leaving visible lighter areas where the stitches prevented the tea from staining the fabric as much, cut up the fabric, washed it, ironed it and framed it.

For anyone curious about what it would have looked liked finished, take a look here.

WIP before the staining disaster:

Pre-framing:

Framed:

I am actually happy with how it looks framed. Now I just need to decide if I have the heart to purchase the materials again and start over!

Quality time with my WIPs

| chandabelle

Having finished the 2 pieces from the previous posts, I am now enjoying some quality time with my WIPs. That is, if & when I get a chance. Most evenings I am far too tired… either from work, little_monkey or running. Its a wonder I find the time and energy to even look at a needle.

Blackwork SAL: This is a blackwork sampler that was released in 7 parts in the magazine The Gift of Stitching. I am up to part 7. I wanted to finish it in 2009… it didn’t happen. I work on it on weeknights. It gets maybe 10 to 20minutes action each night.

Game Board Sampler: Every year I stitch a sampler by The Drawn Thread. For 2010, I selected a simple one… only cross stitch. Lets see if I finish it. At the moment I work on this one only on weekends and public holidays.

I also have 3 other WIPs, which have not been touched since before my last WIP list in November 2009:

4 Agreements Bookmark: A mix of an online goddess freebie pattern and wording/alphabet by me. This is my traveling project. Although we have actually traveled quite a bit, I’ve worked on a few other small projects instead (bibs for my daughter) so it has seen very little progress. I did put a few stitches in it while I was in labour, way back in January of 2009. I’ll take it along for the next trip. Shouldn’t be hard to finish.

Summer in My Garden: By Mirabilia, I am still very happy with how the face turned out, even after a year. I did start working on the tree leaves. Not much progress though… I am starting to feel inspired to restart on this one again. But it will have to wait until I am done with the Blackwork Sampler SAL.

Medieval Town Mandala: By Châtelaine Designs. This project was stained with wood varnish due to negligence on my part some years ago. I rescued it by bleaching the stains off and then tea staining it to hide the bleached spots. I am holding on to it to see how the fabric survives the treatment. Last time I checked it looked OK. I may still decide to frame the part thats done and not take any chances. Anyway, I’ll decide what to do with it once Summer in My Garden is done. So I have plenty of time before I need to make a decision.

Wedding Ring Pocket

| chandabelle

During March and into the first half of April, I worked on a different design, something to carry my friend’s wedding rings. I knew exactly what colours to use. This time I had the limitation that it needed to fit in the best man’s pocket. The original design turned out to be too large. On the final weekend before I had to post it to Australia (from Germany), I finally settled for something truly simple. I posted it on Monday of the week when most of Europe’s airports shutdown due to the Icelandic volcano eruption. I still can not believe that it made it on time for the wedding!

I think you will recognize the basic design… Needless to say, I will be stitching this one again for myself!

And here are a couple more views of it:

It is interesting to design with constrains in mind. Balancing between creativity and certain set limits can be frustrating. Yet, when the piece is finished I get an enormous sense of satisfaction.

I finished the pocket using some fabric I purchased at the Dutch Cloth Market in Ludwigsburg. This is an event that takes place twice a year. My little girl is starting to enjoy visiting the market too…

Porcelain Flowers – selecting colours

| chandabelle

January and February found me busy working on a 15-sided biscornu. I named it porcelain Flowers, I wanted it to look a little like those antic fine porcelain items that look very pretty and we are never 100% sure what their use is. All decorated with flowers and sparkling.

It can be very difficult to select colours for a project. This one was specially difficult since it was intended for my brother and his then fiancé, now wife! They wanted something with light blue in it.

I went through 3 coulor schemes before I finally settled on the right colours.

First I had what I still think would have looked best for this design salmon and cream fabric with tender early spring thread colours:

Then I heard my brother and his bride like blue, so I tried out something with a blue fabric. That really didn’t work for this design:

After sleeping on it several nights I remembered I had some sparkling fabric. I added more blue to the thread selection and I had it!

The final result looked nothing like my original intention. It was a challenging project because of the colour restrictions and the new finishing technique. Here is the finished result:

Plans for 2010

| chandabelle

It’s been quiet here for the past couple of months. I expect there will soon be a little more activity.

2010 should be a big year for Chanda Belle. I have 2 commissions to work on. Well, I call them commissions because it sounds important… I volunteered to do a couple of designs for some good friends. One is for a wedding and the other for a blackwork class. I also hope to finish designing and stitching models of a couple more patterns. If I find the time I also plan to try my hand at sketching simple line drawings and learn how to embroider. Then there is a design I promised for another friend and I vaguely remember owing 2 pay it forward things, possibly 3 for other friends.

On a more practical side, I’ve been doing some research about how to make my patterns available online. So far I’ve found nothing I am happy with. This is no big concern, since I don’t have many patterns to share yet. My researching will continue throughout 2010.

The world is a big beautiful place

| chandabelle

Not many people know that I’ve taken up designing as a new hobby. I was just discussing this with a friend when she said something I do not want to forget… Such conversations are rare but they are needed now and then. Somehow they clear my mind.

After visiting the online Needle Show I was feeling a little discouraged. There are so many beautiful designs out there that it almost feels like there is no room for any more. Who am I to be adding to the wonderful range of designs that are already in existence?

Thats when Bek said “The world is such a big place, filled with so much interesting and beautiful, even though there’s so many designers there’s always something left to be designed.”

Thank you Bek for your words. This is something we should all remember!

NaNoWriMo 2009

| chandabelle

Tomorrow is the start of NaNoWriMo 2009. I won’t actually be writing a novel in the normal sense of the word. I intend to use the motivation to post about my past projects.

Writing a summary of my finished projects has been a regular item on my to-do list. I intend to cross this item off my list by the end of November. Over the next 30 days I shall post about most of my finished projects, maybe even all of them. Assuming I can remember them all. LOL

If I find the time and inspiration I may even have a go at writing a short story about cross-stitching.

Ready, set, go…

TIP: Avoiding Frogs

| chandabelle

No, I am not talking about the croaking kind… I am talking about those times when you’ve been happily stitching and then you realise you made a mistake and need to rip out the last minutes or even hours worth of stitches. So what can you do to avoid frogging?

  1. Count, count, count and then count again before you start a new section or motif. Once you’ve placed the first stitch… you guessed it… count again.
  2. Are you sitting there stitching and thinking you should be doing something else? Drop that needle and go do it. Once you’ve done it… reward yourself with some stitching time! Its not something I like to admit but the vast majority of my frogging could be avoided by following this simple and unpopular tip.

Got any tips of your own for how to avoid the dreaded frog?

What’s next? Baby things!

| chandabelle

Well… apart from needing to put in a bit of effort into getting this journal looking a little better, I am also going to finish the project I had been working on before the mad rush to get the 2 biscornu patterns ready on time for the Territory Crafts cross-stitch class.

The project that was put on the back burned was the Baby Checkered Alphabet. I am in love with this simple alphabet that allows me to easily and quickly stitch baby things. As a model I am working on a gift for a friend who had a baby a few months ago. Its a bib with her daughters name on it. The flash is making the colours look a little faded… but you should be able to get an idea of what it looks like.

Preview Checkered Alphabet

It’s so much fun selecting colours to stitch the letters. All these bright colours which I wouldn’t normally use together in any of the “grown up” patterns are perfect for baby things. My own baby girl keeps reaching over wanting to have a play with the brightly coloured letters!

I have a few more ideas for baby patterns which makes me wonder if I should re-organise my DMC threads into adult and baby colours? *wink*