And at last....Sleeping Beauty

And she is, at last, complete.

The particulars:   The design is Sleeping Beauty by Mirabilia;  the fabric is "Fathom" by Picture This Plus, 32 count lugana done over 2.    Started May 2009;  completed September 17, 2010.

Backstory:   Back in the mid-90's, I originally fell in love with this design and decided to try it.  I'd never done any linen or over 2 stitching at all or anything this large.  I made the mistake of starting on the area of the design that I've recently dubbed The Green Monster and predictably, ended up quitting after a couple days.   Put her away.

Re-bought all the supplies in early 2009 (after spending 10+ years exclusively stitching over 2 and on linen, and after having completed several Mirabilias) and got her started again.    She is the first piece that I decided to use hand dyed fabric.

Last winter I was going through about six tubs of assorted crafty things before I moved and found the original Sleeping Beauty...lol..poor thing!  It was quite a mess and I know why I quit.  

The nickname of The Green Monster came about because the pale green draped area of her skirt was a pain to do!   Blends, white, greens, lots of confetti stitching to get the shading effect AND leaving the open swirls for future beading.  I ended up stitching one 10x10 square of the pattern at a time because it was the most effective way to move through the pattern.   And of course...it also ended up delaying the finish by a week because the pattern indicates you only need one packet of the pale blue beads.  Itended up requiring almost four full packets of beads, which I had to order online.

But the Green Monster was eventually tamed - put the last beads on about an hour ago.  

The Green Monster strikes again....

Well, it seems the Green Monster isn't quite finished causing me problems LOL  

Normally, Mirabilia patterns are quite good about listing when you need extra skeins of floss (although I usually use more - I'm terribly wasteful with floss when I stitch I think) and extra beads (which have been accurate on the other ten Miras that I've stitched).

Alas, not so with Sleeping Beauty.   The Green Monster has chewed it's way through the entire packet of beads it called for, and isn't even a third of the way beaded.   Doh!   I did have one more packet of beads in my stash, but that won't be enough.  There also aren't enough of the medium blue beads, although the disparity isn't nearly as great.

I don't think this picture shows really well on here where the beads run out - I'm working on the bottom swoop of the Green Monster, and that's about as far as I got with the one bead pack - everything above that still needs to be beaded.   I stopped after that because I can guestimate from there how many more I need and started with the blue beads at the top to confirm that I need more of those as well (and I will). 

I'll be away this weekend so no work on her for a couple days.   I'll probably wait until I get back to order replacement beads (or just try one of the local needlework stores). 

So the grand finish will have to be put off for a little bit...but it's coming!

Well hello there...

And finally....a face.

Beading today, and then she's complete.

Filling in the blanks

Now that the right hand side of Sleeping Beauty is finished, I'm working my way up the left hand side, filling in all the areas I skipped over when I was working there last.

If there's a large area of white on a piece that I know is going to take me a long time, I usually leave it closer to the end so that it doesn't pick up any dirt over the months (years) it takes me to finish it.  Ugh.  I'm going to have white floss nightmares tonight I think.   I also did (surprise) some more roses, leaving me with a grand total of one more bunch of them over her currently non-exisitent elbo.

I did get a little floss yesterday at Joann's - silly store put a limit on the number of skeins to 32.     I mean seriously.  32?   I almost never buy that few, unless I'm just picking up a couple of colors needed for a project that I'm working on.   Fortunately I was only getting about 50, so I just went through line twice LOL  Can you imagine if it was one of my floss blow outs when I buy 200+ at one shot? 

I got a fat half of fabric from a fellow stitcher (mostly) through trade that I thought might work well for Chatelaine's Watergarden.  Now, I'm not going to be starting that until I finish with my current Chatelaine, Knotgarden.    I thought it would look good on a blue background, and you know I like more muted colors than bright ones.  Since I got the fabric, I wanted to do a floss drop to see how well that color would work.

So here's the floss drop.  Although it works really well with most of the Watergarden colors, I think it washes out the bright blues (on the left) that are one of the reasons I really like Watergarden in the first place.  There's also a lot of bright blue beading as well.

I have plenty of time to decide whether or not I'll stick with this fabric or maybe just use an antique white.  Either way, I like the fabric itself (a solid cashel) so if I don't use it for this project, I'll surely use it for another.

Everything's coming up roses...

.....and finally, a (nearly) completed frame.   I still have some greens to fill in one the upper right hand corner, but all the flowers are finished.  Whew!  Don't ask to look at the back in that section LOL

I had a few nervous moments where I thought that the one side of the frame wasn't going to match up with the other, but no, turns out I made a small mistake that was easily frogged.  

I was hoping to get the entire corner finished over the weekend, but that proved to be a little too ambitious.  I should be able to finish up this corner in the next day or two, and move back to the left side of piece and fill in all the areas that I missed there, including even more roses...ack!

Sleeping Beauty gets a Blue Ribbon

....or at least the bottom of her skirt does.  

I'm making good progress up the left border this week, and shoudl be moving on to the urn today or tomorrow.  

It looks like the border SHOULD line up correctly with the top border...yay!   I'm always a little nervous about that.   Still, I'm not going to be daring and start working my way down instead of up - I suspect that would be courting disaster LOL

I'm so excited to be this close to finishing her....it's been a long, long journey to get here.

And since I just keep showing "teaser" partial pictures, here's a full picture of where she's at now: 

If I had to guess, I'd say I could be beading in maybe two weeks.   Yay!   After I finish the top right hand corner (hopefully maybe this weekend?), I need to go back and finish her hair and face, fill in a bunch of white in the draping that the left, and add a couple more sprays of roses.  Although there's extensive beading, it's fairly straight forward with only three colors of beads.

Let the countdown begin!

Turning a corner....

...literally.

I like how the spray of roses looks against The Green Monster.  

I'm working my way up the left side of the pattern now.   I've completed out to the top left corner but still have to do all the detailing there (ribbons, roses, little purple things) as yet.

Hopefully it'll all meet up in one line LOL   I'm sure it'll be fine (that, or I'll just tweak the pattern and you won't be able to tell - not that I've ever done THAT before ;-)).

The Green Monster is done!

With all this plotting and planning and stashing, yes, I have actually squeezed in some stitching.  

And as is appropriate with so much planning for new projects, I'm pushing to get Sleeping Beauty finished.   There's still quite a bit to do, but I'm slowly but steadily working through it.   Of significance, I FINALLY finished the green monster, aka her skirt, yesterday!

This was the ONLY time working on any Mirabilia where I had to go back and work 10x10 grid squares on the pattern.   As I've mentioned before, there is not only the shading between darker greens into white, but also leaving the swirls open for beading.   Argh!   It was a complicated process to be sure, but it's finally done.

As you can see, I'm working on adding more roses, of which there are plenty still to go.   I will probably work my way out to the right border and finish that first, then work my way back and fill in areas that I have done some of the work but not completed (lots of that!).  

Still Going...

Yes, yes...I'm still working on Sleeping Beauty.  I just haven't felt like changing projects as yet, and she's growing nicely now.  I still have a lot of areas that I haven't completed and need to go back and fill in, and there are plenty more roses to do.  

I'm currently working to finish off the bottom of the green swirly part of the bedding.   I'll be glad when that's done.

I got the roses across the top finished, but there are a lot more scattered around that need to be completed.   You can also see where the top border on the right is starting to curve down, so that gives a better idea of final dimensions.

I will putting her away on Friday to move along to the next piece, but next time around that she's in rotation, I'll be finishing her.

Coming along nicely...

Sleeping Beauty is coming along nicely.  I am invoking executive privilege and will continue to work on Sleeping Beauty for an additional week. I wanted to get some more of the pesky roses done as there are quite a few, and I don't want to leave it all until the end. They're pesky because while beautiful, there's a lot of confetti-like stitching in them.  I wanted to get some work done on the top border this week and just didn't get to it.

I did get most of the green swirly swag of the skirt done and am currently working on the upper part where it's blue and white shaded.   You can't see the blue stitching too well on this picture so I took a close up.  This is going to look spectacular when it's beaded.

I have to say, I am tempted to keep working on her until she's finished at this point.  Not only do I have lots of other Miras crying to be started, but I just love this design and it's been fun to work on.   We'll see how I feel about it next Friday LOL   Knotgarden is up next and I really want to work on that as well.  

Roses, roses

And you know I love my roses.

I haven't worked on Sleeping Beauty for quite a while so here's a "before" picture as a reminder.

I have quite a ways to go on this project yet, but she's been a joy to stitch.  

And here's where I got to her this week.   The skirt pattern (with the swirls) is actually a bit difficult to do, as you need to leave a lot of space blank for beading (those will come later) and there's a lot of subtle color changes going on.  I opted to do that area by completing each 10x10 block at a time, which actually sped things along quite a bit.  

Here's Chatelaine's Knotgarden:


This is my first Chatelaine project, but definately won't be the last. I really love the kaleidoscope effect of the mandalas. I'm planning on doing a series of four or so of the Garden Mandalas.

Here's Meeting on the Turret Stairs from Artecy, which is a reproduction of the Burton painting:

It's all confetti stitching, which can be frustrating at times. However, I love the effect that the piece has, and plan on doing more Artecy painting reproductions in the future. I am using Aida for the first time in years for this, since it's all whole stitches and none of the background shows.

And yet another Mirabilia here, Sleeping Beauty this time:

Sleeping Beauty was the first Mirabilia I ever attempted years ago, but I gave up on it because at the time, it was too above my skill level. I'm really looking forward to getting her finished at some point soon.

And finally, Mirabilia's Midsummer Night's Fairy:

She clocks in as my oldest WIP, so needs some special attention in the coming months. Like many of the fantasy Mirabilias, she has lots of beads and metallic threads.

This is where I got to on Sleeping Beauty before I put her away so I could rotate onto another project.

Sleeping Beauty is starting to emerge....

I'm going to need to make a run for more floss soon - the purples and the greens are running out fast!

There's also a surprising amount of white in the piece; you don't notice it as much with the shading but it's definately there. As usual, the drapes of fabric are coming out great.

I'm getting started on the dress - there's so much going on with the swirling colors (pale greens and pale blues) as well as the beading pattern over it.

Slow progress on Sleeping Beauty



Slowly but surely! I don't seem to be getting very much done on her, but she's coming along. Some of the stitching is quite close to the background color so you can't see it very well on this picture, but it'll all come together.

Project Updates

More progress on Knotgarden - this is the upper left corner.

To keep straight which end is up, I've done a hemstitch across the top of the fabric in green thread, and the rest of the hemstitching is in white. Since the fabric is a 28 count lugana, the hemstitching also prevents fraying - I find lugana is particularly prone to this.

I'm leaning more and more towards using DMC floss instead of buying the varigated silks for some of the specialty stitches. I may buy the ones to use in the borders, but some of them are very sparingly used. If I subsitute, I'll use floss colors that are already within the pattern.



Sleeping Beauty is back in rotation. I'm just working my way down some of the lavender bedding. I'm debating about doing the hands and face over 1 - I like the look of it, but the actual stitching (especially on a darker background) can be a bit frustrating.

Sleeping Beauty has a bit of a history with me. I first attempted to do her back in the mid-90's, but I had never done a Mirabilia nor had I ever worked on linen (or any over 2) before. I saw the pattern at a LNS and just loved it, and splurged on the materials. Not long after I started, I gave it up - I kept making mistakes and having to frog, and all those frustrating things you do when you really do not know what you're doing. I don't know what happened to what I'd worked on - probably ditched it. About a year later, I was determined that I was going to learn to stitch on linen, did some research to learn some of the ins and outs, and ended up doing a much smaller project - a teacup that I still have - and I've never looked back.

I still love Sleeping Beauty, and am very happy to be back working on her now. Such a gorgeous piece! Thanks to Sandy on the Mirabilia yahoo group for helping me out with the fabric choice.

There are so many Mirabilias that I've fallen in love with over the years - that I still love them 10+ years later is very gratifying, and inspiring me to work through some of those favorites. The Queens, Fairy Idyll, now Sleeping Beauty and Midsummer Night's Fairy. It's really become kind of a bucket list. Rose of Sharon is another classic that I'll need (yes - need) to do, but I'm going to change the dress colors as I'm not overly fond of the yellow/blue she's wearing. I'm leaning towards a lavender/cream combination instead. I don't have a lot of embroideries where lavender is featured, so that'll make a nice change. I think that color combo on a cream background will give sort of a faded/antiqued overall finish which is appropriate for the piece.

There's some other future plans under the "Wish List" section to the left of the blog - just for fun.

I'm stalking my mailman for an order I placed with Nordic Needle...not that I need it anytime soon, but you know how that goes :-)

Sneak Preview

Clearly I was going to start this sooner than later.

Just playing around with it for a few days, then I'll go back to working on one of the other WIPs.

Materials for Sleeping Beauty by Mirabilia
This is a great example of why it's really great when people share pictures of their needlework. Sandy on the Mirbilia yahoo group had a fantastic background color for her version of Sleeping Beauty, and was kind enough to help me find the same fabric. It's a hand dyed 32 count lugana from Picture Plus called Fathom - it has a really pretty pattern (although subtle) to it.