Mabel's WIPs -- thread now retired

[pamelam]

Beautiful work Mabel!

[XandraS]

Lovely ribbon work Mabel

[agi]

Wow, these roses are lovely!

[Rose]

Wow that looks great!!!!!

[Fljotsdale]

Oooh! Nice! I've never tried ribbon work - is it difficult?

[dollystitcher]

Oh this looks so pretty, I really like the look of ribbon work but have never tried it myself

[Serinde]

Gorgeous work, Mabel. I remember those mini hardanger designs, too. When you next have a little extra to spend, you might think about acquiring Christmas Colour with Hardanger by Mary Hicknott.

[mig-3]

Looking good.

This is why I enjoy stitching. There are so many different styles; if one wants, they'll never stop learning or get bored with our beloved little "X"s. Gourmet or gourmand, there's room at this crafting feast for everyone.

[Mabel Figworthy]

When you next have a little extra to spend, you might think about acquiring Christmas Colour with Hardanger by Mary Hicknott.

I've seen it advertised and I'm keeping it in the back of my mind. Having just splashed out in Wimblebees' closing-down sale however, it may be a while...

For now, here are two more hardanger minis. A bit of an experiment, as I remembered buying some Vineyard Shimmer silk (which is silk with a metallic thread running through it) which turned out to be rather too thick for cross stitch. So would it work instead of Pearl #5 ? Well, it did, sort of -- it's a little thinner so on the black fabric it doesn't quite cover as well as I'd like, but it has a nice sparkle.

In the first one, on black, I combined it with Caron Impressions (176 Golden Grains) and Petite Treasure Braid (01 Bright gold). Impressions works well instead of Wildflowers but is a bit more "fluffy".



The second one is on antique white, and here the longer stitches showed off the thread much better. I combined it with dark red pearl #8 and again Petite Treasure braid:

[Nachstenliebe]

I see your confidence with cutting the holes and hiding the stray ends has improved since you first tried hardanger
Faith

[Mabel Figworthy]

I see your confidence with cutting the holes and hiding the stray ends has improved since you first tried hardanger
Faith

yes, it has rather! Nothing like experience (and getting it wrong once or twice....)

[agi]

[XandraS]

Lovely hardangers, the gold and red on white look great together

[Rose]

Wow those are beautiful!!!!

[Murmured]

What fabulous minis! I love them! Where are you getting them all from? Do you have a little book of hardanger minis?

[Mabel Figworthy]

Some are from New Stitches, some I make up as I go along . Once you've got a few basic shapes you can then just change the fillings and so on, and they end up all just that little bit different!

This one, as far as I know, is my own design -- I'm sure someone else has thought of it before , but I mean I haven't copied it from anything I've seen. I wanted to do something in gold red and green, preferable with a poinsettia type motif in it. Well, here it is -- the green isn't as dark as I'd like but it's the only one I had, it's Impressions, the gold is that Vineyard Shimmer again and then some red pearl #8:



I'm also using regular Vinyards silk for another Madonna, it looks quite good but isn't ideal when working on aida, it rubs the thread too much.

The ribbon kit, which I hope to finish this weekend, is aannoying me -- I'm doing the flowers which aren't described, and so I'm having to guess from the picture what ribbon is used. Also the flower centres appear to be french knots in ribbon, but the description only mentiones french knots in cotton, so I don't know which ribbon to use for those! I'll let you know if I do actually finish it, or throw it out of the window

[karen4bells]

very pretty Mabel--love it!

[Nachstenliebe]

Very pretty! It does look like a poinsetta!
Faith

[Rose]

Another fantastic finish!!!!!!!

[Fljotsdale]