I visiting Salty Yarns yesterday, since summer is on it's way and I usually won't go down to Ocean City during the tourist season. I wanted some of the specialty threads for Mermaid of Atlantis, by Mirabilia, which I am slowly but surely kitting up. There's quite a bit of specialty threads & beads for her, and I picked up the Caron Waterlilies hand dyed silk threads that I'll need for her.

And....I've fallen in love. Again. I've seen Chatelaine Designs mentioned in some of the online needlework groups that I belong to, but hadn't really seen any of their designs up close. Salty Yarns had two of the Mandalas.

I'm not sure what it is, but the designs utterly fascinate me. I've always liked Celtic knotwork, and from a distance, they remind me of that which is what caught my attention. The whole kaleidoscope effect is mesmerizing. However, when you look closer, there's SO much going on within the patterns. Really, really interesting. I ended up getting The Knotgarden, and am going to have to order The Watergarden sometime soon, because I'm not sure which one I like better.

The Mandalas are mostly cross stitch, but incorporate some other stitching methods - for example, Knotgarden has algerian eyes, rhodes stitches, and a few others. It also incorporates variegated hand dyed silk threads, seed beads, bugle beads, metallics, glass treasures, and DMC floss, so there will be a considerable investment in this piece (plus the pattern is pricey, plus linen). Ack! I'll have to just buy a few things at one time, so I can pretend it's not as expensive ;-).

For those who like instant gratification, you can buy patterns online through Chatelaine as pdf files via Paypal. Alternatively, Nordic Needle and ABC Stitch both carry some of the patterns.