Giving Away Good Stuff!

In an effort to curtail my overflowing pattern collection, I am GIVING AWAY the patterns for my two latest finishes, Midsummer Night's Fairy AND Mermaid of Atlantis.  You've seen them, you've admired them, now you can own them :-)  Both patterns are only VERY gently used and in great condition.

And not ONLY will these lovely patterns being given away but I'm also included all the extra beads and specialty threads leftover with these projects in with the pattern.   There aren't enough goodies to completely do the whole project, but they'll get you started and save you from having to buy some of the bling.  How cool is that?

To enter for the give-away:  

1.  You must be a follower of this blog (yes, you can sign up now)
2.  Leave a comment on this post!  Indicate which pattern you'd like to win, Mermaid of Atlantis OR Midsummer Night's Fairy OR Either.   All entries must be received by 8 am EST, Wednesday, April 21st.
3.  The winners will be posted on this blog on Wednesday, April 21th.  Make sure to check the blog and if you won, drop me an email at HerBoudoir@aol.com with your address, and I'll get your pattern & goodies out to you.  

The winners will be picked by a fairly scientific process:  I'll write names on scraps of paper, toss them into a bowl, and pick them at random. 

The Not-So-Fine-Print:

1. You must live in the continental US (sorry - my postage budget doesn't stretch further than that)
2. Obvious but true: if you win you'll need to email me your address.
3. Winners will have a week to contact me with their address.  If I don't hear from you, the patterns will be given to someone else at my discretion.

Note:  Support your favorite cross stitch designers by buying patterns new whenever possible - buying used patterns does not financially support them!   If they can't make a reasonable profit designing the cross stitch patterns we love so much, they will no longer be able to design for us.  I am giving away these two patterns because for some reason, I have two copies of both.  I bought one for you AND one for me apparently LOL.

Mermaid of Atlantis - Finished!!

I had the pictures posted yesterday but was too wiped out to add some commentary.  Thank goodness for the "edit" feature.

The particulars:  The design is "Mermaid of Atlantis" by Mirabilia.   Done on Picture This Plus 32 count Fathom lugana. 

She's a smaller design, especially when compared to Mirabilia's many "grand ladies" - just 7 1/2 inches by 15 3/4 inches.   However, with three Waterlilies, five Kreiniks, and seven packs of beads....there's no lack of detail or bling.   Warning: kitting up was quite pricey with all those extras!   Factor in the hand dyed fabric (even though it was technically a leftover from another project) and she's not-so-little LOL

I'm not sure how well it comes through on the photo of the fish, but the surrounding beads (the ones that look like bubbles) are all one color.  I attached them using Waterlilies Bermuda Reef (which shows up in the tail as well) since there are scattered stitches of that color;  because the beads there are light in color, it gave them a nifty varigated effect that I really like.   I'm still trying to figure out what it is she is holding - the pattern refers to it as "treasure" and it's vaguely seaweedy/floral in nature LOL   Ah well.  It's pretty, nonetheless.

Naked Mermaid

Well...naked in that she has no beading as yet!  So I have as much done as I can at this point - all the beading needs to go on (6 packets of Mill Hills) and I'm actually short once color of floss for backstitching.  Gets me every time when there's a color of backstitching not used elsewhere - I never remember to add those colors onto my floss list.   I'll pick that up this week, and I should get my beadbox and beading needles next weekend (the folks are coming to visit and bringing up more of my stuff). 

So Atlantis is getting packed away for a week or so.  Irritating, isn't it, to get this close to a finish but not be able to have it done??

Fish!

Just missing a few beads.

Scrollwork Close Up

Getting close!

I decided I probably do have enough of the Espresso Waterlilies to do the border, so we're going with that.

What I do NOT have is my bead box - it wasn't in the last batch of moved stuff, and I wasn't able to find a replacement.  Grrrrr.  If I get the stitching done soon (which I should be able to do), she may have to be put away until I have the proper equipment to bead. 

I'll post a picture of it, but it's just a 95 cent box I got from Walmart.   It's got 14 individually locking compartments and it's perfect to work out of when beading a Mira or other large project.  Unfortunately they don't seem to carry it anymore (but then, the craft section of my local Wally World is usually a trashed mess).

But even if I didn't move ALL of my cross stitch stuff as yet, I did bring all of my "in progress" project boxes, so never fear, I have plenty of other things to work on.

Cruising Along on Mermaid of Atlantis

It really seems like I'm smoking through her, but the progress on Mermaid of Atlantis is somewhat deceptive because she's a petite thing compared to say, the Queens.   No worries - I'll take it!

That said - the Mermaid is finished stitching, except for the backstitching and beading, which is fairly exciting!   I still need to do the borders.   I started the scrollwork at the bottom, then there's the shell/fish motifs and the frame.

I am going to be working on her solidly until she's complete now.  I'm jonesing for a big finish, plus I'd love to start one of the new projects I have lined up.

The only think I'm concerned with is that I'm starting to run low on one of the Waterlilies (Espresso), which is supposed to be used for the outside border.   I may use Umbria instead (one of the other Waterlilies used on MoA) since I seem to have a lot of that left and it would still look really nice. 

There's not a ton of backstitching but there's a LOT of beads to go on yet.

Fish Tails...

Just a quickie update....Mermaid of Atlantis has grown a tail and the crest is completed except for the beading.

Because I use Qsnap frames to stitch, I wait until everything is done and then do the beadwork. If a piece is small enough (like MoA), I'll just switch to a larger Qsnap set up; for large projects, I'll use the dreaded scroll frame.

2009 ~ A productive year indeed ~ In Progresses

And on to the projects that I started this year and haven't finished (aren't there always a lot of those?) The good news is that anything started prior to 2009 has been completed.

First up: Mermaid of Atlantis by Mirabilia:



I've always been fond of her mermaids, and this one has a ton of specialty threads (silk varigated and metallics) and beads.

Next is another Mirabilia, Royal Holiday:

This is the first large Christmasy cross stitch project that I've ever done, and it may take several Christmases to finish and get framed at this rate LOL ah well...

Mermaid of Atlantis

I thought I was starting Mermaid of Atlantis fresh last week but apparently I jumped the gun a couple of months ago when I first kitted her up. When I opened up her box to get her started, quite a bit of the "core" of the body was done - just two colors, but it gave me a nice place to work off of this week to get to this point.

This is one very bling-y mermaid - tons of metallics and beads, and a few Waterlillies thrown in just in case she wasn't fancy enough. She's also rather petite, which means she'll be a quick stitch compared to some of the other Mirabilias. The fabric is Picture This Plus 32 count Fathom.

I have started on some of the metallics but I'll wait until all of the stitching is done to add the beads. I prefer to work on Q-snaps, and I won't put the snaps over beaded areas. MoA is small enough I can just bead her on a large Qsnap frame; for larger projects, I use the dreaded scroll frame (NOT my favorite - they never hold the fabric tightly enough).

I only got one Waterlillies Espresso, so I'm probably not going to have enough of that for her. It's not my favorite Waterlillies (it was on Fairy Idyll as well), so I will probably change up the border a bit rather than ordering more.

I have a little bit of a dilemma. It's that time of the year - I've started thinking back about what projects I've started and what projects I've finished this year. I've been doing really well with rotation stitching the last month, but there's a part of me wondering if I wouldn't rather work on something that might be able to be finished during the year. There are three candidates that could feasibly be finished over the next month. Hmmmm....we shall see. Part of me NEEDS another big finish - I haven't had one since May. May!!! But the balance of that is that I have quite a few more projects going than I normally do - seven, rather than my usual three or four, and most of them have significant progress on them.

We'll see ~ it's been a rough couple weeks of school so it's a bit of indulgence that I suspect I could use.

You may have notice I've been playing around with the set up of the blog a bit lately. I like the labels, since it can help find specific posts. It does make me laugh that there's lots of small labels but a HUGE Mirabilia one LOL

So, I'm done stalking the mailman!



My latest stash order came in. I got two more Chatelaine Mandala Gardens: Watergarden and Alhambra Garden. I want to do those along with Knotgarden as my next set. There's a few more gardens in this particular set, but I don't know if I want to do all of them. I'm doing them on antique white 28 count lugana. I switched to 28 count because of the beaded areas - I think that the beads sit better on 28 count than my usual 32, and I chose antique white lugana because with such complex designs, I prefer a simpler background.

I also got the beads and metallics that I needed to finish kitting up Knotgarden and Mermaid of Atlantis. Obviously, I've been working on Knotgarden already. MoA is now ready to go; I may work on her when I go on vacation later this summer because it's a smaller piece and easier to tote around. MoA will be worked on the end piece of the fat half of PtP Fathom lugana that I'm working Sleeping Beauty on.