Three more finishes (including 2 I forgot to blog)

Please excuse the poor level of photography at present.  I cannot for the life of me find my battery charger and the rechargeables in my camera are as flat as pancakes.  I need to remember to buy some decent AA ones on Tuesday!  It's weird but the camera on my phone is theoretically better (5MP) than my 10 year old 2.2MP Olympus.  The Olympus still takes fantastic photos and I am loathe to chop it in for something fancier and with theoretically better resolution.  I have always been a fan of Olympus Cameras and the digital cameras are just fab.  Sorry for the digression.

Finish 1 is the much heralded Chatelaine Japanese Garden which has taken 7.5 years to complete.  I still love it as a piece but I am so relieved to have finally finished it. It's mixed silk and cotton on DMC 32ct linen. The piece of linen was barely big enough for the project, hence the conservation strips you can see sewn on in some of the photos.  There are a couple of detail shots in my Flickr Album

It's got the most enormous mistake on it, which I can immediately see but no-one else would even notice.  It was the reason that it didn't get finished for so long.  Problem was that it was not a mistake that could be corrected as I made it very early on in the project so it had to be fudged.  I was reduced to despair when it happened. Now its complete, only the fussiest judge would find it.

Yes, those are real pearls, ring pearls to be precise and loads of bling from Delica beads and Swarovski cubes and bicones.  Now to complete a companion piece - Japanese Moss or Chinese Mandala?  Yes, I am a Chatelaine addict or should that read 'glutton for punishment'

Second finish is one from last year.  I took part in the Tree of Stitches SAL on Abi Gurden's Yahoo group The Stitch Specialists It is the Tree of Stitches and it is all silk and speciality stitches on 28ct dusty pink linen. I can't get the photo to load from Flickr :(

Third finish is The Great Escape also by Abi Gurden and also a SAL last year.  I finshed this about November time and completely forgot about it!  It's turned out far better than I has hoped as I had real problems early on.  All silk again from my Chatelaine leftovers it has a real charm to it. From the bugs, moths and spider to the mice and the flowers, it is a lovely project and bound to stretch technical skills.

Back to current stitching.  The Ostsee Mandala is back on the Qsnaps (with all extenders fitted) and is edging closer to a finish.  There is still a huge amount to to and if I look at the whole piece I start to panic. I have to stick to the corner I'm working on and ignore the rest.  It's the only way with a project this BIG.  It's one of the largest Chatelaine mandalas and it's 411 stitches square.  That works out at pushing 30" or for those who speak metric 75cm.  Told you it was big!

Also on the frame is Long Dog Samplers Time and Tide which is now at the half way point.  The border still bugs me but, like toothache, it is nice once it stops I'll get some more crappy pictures this week and hopefully update in a week or so

Of to play with thread now and make some progress!