I'm back

It turns out that the Mirabilia model I thought might take six to eight weeks to stitch only took three, so it's been mostly done since last Monday. I sent a question about five stitches a couple of weeks ago, so it won't be officially done until I get a reply and then hopefully approval from Nora. 🤞🏻

While I wait, I decided to pull out Hands on Design's Christmas Beetle and design a back for it so I could do the final finishing. A few days later I had a finish:

It joins Ladybug Picnic and Botanical Bee:

I just received the chart for the fourth bug in the series, Night Light, and I have it kitted up and ready to go:

I probably won't start it right away, but I might design a back for it now so I can stitch both parts at the same time when I'm ready to work on it.

In a bit of good timing, since I had just finished the model, I received a free kit from IMAKE, who contacted me through Instagram and offered to send me one. I'll confess that I had never heard of them, but it turns out they design mandalas in a style similar to Chatelaine designs, in both mini and full-sized versions. I chose their Mini Courtyard Pearl kit:

The kit arrived on Saturday and was very neatly packaged. It contains everything you need to stitch it: charts, fabric, threads, beads/crystals, beading thread and both tapestry and beading needles:

While it did come with a piece of fabric, I decided to use black Cashel instead, as I thought the colors would glow on it:

It's always difficult to get the colors to show accurately on black fabric in photos, but IRL they show up better than this progress photo shows:

I did switch out one of the threads from the kit; it was a silk perle that just seemed too thick and twisty, and I didn't like the way those stitches looked. I replaced it with three strands of a Caron Waterlilies and am much happier with it (it's the lightest color that forms the inner part in the photo). 

I should be able to finish this today or tomorrow, then I'll probably work on part 3 of Tiny Modernist's Poison Garden SAL, which was released on Saturday. We've gotten about 20" of snow since Saturday and are still under a blizzard warning, so I guess I'll just have to hunker down in my craft room to ride it out. ❄️🥶

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!