Reminder

I still have these magnificent beauties in my WIP and Hope To Do Soon lists.

Candyfloss finish

Still dirty and wrinkled and snapped in poor light, but Candyfloss, the first of the Ink Circles Roll Your Own mandala series is finished. I am so fed up with mandalas I just signed up for the next series. Here is the link in case you are interested.

Roll Your Own progress

I am still working on the Candyfloss square by Ink Circles. I am almost done with the top half. The rayon floss I use for the edges looks great, it gives the design a very stained glass look, but I admit it is very difficult to work with and significantly slows my progress down. I still love the design, but as I said previously, right now I have Mirabilia fever, so it is not my number one project.

In the meantime, Tracy has released the sequels to this mandala, and I signed up to buy all six designs. I even picked the colours for the next one and put my first stitches in it. I call it Summer Bride. The photos below are awful, I picked a light yellow piece of aida and some lovely warm shades of Anchor floss. But with bad lighting and a phone camera, it looks like this. I will take another picture later.

Just the pictures

Joining SALs like there's no tomorrow

Being addicted to Abi Gurden's Tree of Stitches it was obvious that I would sign up for anything she had planned to throw our way. I have already stitched the original tree twice, and I'm in the process of picking colours for the third one. So when she announced the SAL for her Summer Tree of Stitches, I simply yelled "shut up and take my money" at the computer screen and joined up before even looking at the design. Which, by the way, is stunning and unique and calls out to me. I invite everyone to sign up and join us. Just click on the link above and get stitching! Here is the image to get your mouth watering:

The second SAL I signed up for is a special Inc Circles mandala design. We are invited to pick our favourite colours and stitch this beautiful design. You can get all the details by checking the designer's blog. There is also a Yahoo! group where we can share ideas and progress.

These are the colours I picked for this design, but I cannot make up my mind about which fabric to choose. Also, I don't wanna make the dividing line black but I cannot decide on what shade to use, plus, there is the difficulty to assigning colour families to shape families, so it is not as easy as it bloody seems and every time I go through this I have more and more respect for designers and all the hard work they put into their projects.

FYI the colours I picked are:

(from light to dark)

3608, 917, 915,

963, 962, 335,

153, 209, 3837

800, 813, 825,

I call this version Candyfloss. :)

Finish update

As I have promised, here are a few photos of the finished Ink Circles piece. It looks even better in real life. Here you can see two totals and a few close ups. Most of the pictures can be seen after the jump.

This is going to be a beautiful pillow.

Happy dancing in circles

Yay, not 10 minutes ago I have finally finished Cirque les Cercles! I will upload scans later today, I just couldn't wait to share the news! I am literally happy dancing around the room!

Circles progress

I still haven't found a time slot where I could stitch regularly, but I did manage to squeeze in a couple xs into my schedule. I have made some progress on Cirque les Cercles by Ink Circles. I can only hope I spelt that one right. Anyway, as you can see I am on the last page and very close to finish.

Ink Circles progress

Almost done with page 4 and the stitch goes on!

Ink Circles progress

These are not the latest pictures, I will have to do some scanning before I can post those. These are after finishing page 3, and I am almost done with page 4 now. I put up a folder for this WIP on my Picasa albums. 

This place is cursed

I have lost, or rather misplaced, the materials for yet another project. I can't find the original chart pack for my Ink Circles project, which is a problem because I kept the floss in its folder. I only have the working copies and the fabric. I may gonna have to buy some new skeins. Which is problematic only as I don't know its number, I only remember it is Anchor variegated. Here's hoping that will be enough to identify it. Here is a scan of how far I got with three skeins (I think).

Cercles progress

While one variegated turned monochromatic design is giving me a hard time with the ill sized fabric and the disappearing magical floss, the other one is growing nicely. Here it is nearly at the end of the second skein. I love every minute of working on it, I truly do. I am tempted to re-stitch it in other colour combinations over and over again. 

Page one done

I have been very diligently working on Cirque des Cercles and I have managed to finish page one already! I went right on to page two and stitched until I ran out of floss. No worries, I have enough this time, I knew this one would be floss consuming so I bought 6 skeins and only used up one so far.
Unfortunately, I only have a rather bad photo to share. I took it with my phone camera and the light wasn't too good either. I will try to take some more later today but I just couldn't wait sharing this!
A few of you have been asking me questions, let me answer here. The chart looks very difficult and intricate but do not let it scare you. It is very easy to follow and a pleasure to stitch. The floss I am using is Anchor variegated #1348. I'm still planning to give away the chart for free when I am done stitching the project. I will post it in here and you will be able to sign up for it in comments as usual.

Ink Circles progress

This is definitely not my best scanning job ever! Unfortunately, the fabric is badly wrinkled and you can see the hoop marks, so it is all kinds of blurry. Plus slightly tilted. I'm still/again (pick one, both are kinda correct) reorganizing my home so there is a bunch of stuff piled up on the scanner's top. I can only lift the lid a little to cram the fabric inside, and, as usual, little effort leads to crappy results, as demonstrated here. But it's enough to show you my progress.
As you can see, I am almost done with page 1 and I am extremely satisfied with myself!

And yet another project

I admit it, I started stitching on a new project last week. I couldn't help it. I had this beautiful chart by Ink Circles for quite some time. I had the fabric and the floss neatly put aside for so long. I just couldn't resist it any longer!
Unfortunately, I don't have my camera with me, so you will have to make do with the pictures I took on my cell phone. However, before I attach those pictures, I wanna thank Pat once more for giving me this beautiful chart. She was blogging about her progress on this project and made me fell in love with it. So when I commented on her fabulous stitching, she decided to simply give me the chart when she was finished! You don't see generosity like that every day... well, unless you are lucky enough to be a stitching blogger with many similar friends you don't . You ladies (and the occasional gentlemen) know that I'm right. Follow enough blogs and you get news of a new giveaway every day. For example, here is Kathy's blog, Shawkl. She is hosting a 7-day long giveaway to celebrate a loved one's birthday. Come and join!
And now, the pictures of Cirque des Cercles:

This one should be turned 90 degrees counter-clockwise...

This is what it looks like right now.