Katmandu Mandala

When it comes to embroidery I'm generally of the mindset that more is more -- you can never have too much embellishment. The quilter Mark Lipinski seems to agree, because he designed a line of cotton fabrics specifically for embellishment. Naturally I was all over that, and I picked up a piece of the orange fabric with mandalas and paisleys printed on it.

Before:

After:

Details:

From the inside out: The innermost ring is straight stitch in lime green with blue AB seed beads. The twelve-pointed star is in purple straight stitch with red AB seed beads woven in and out of the points (unfortunately the weaving effect is not as prominent as I had hoped). The next ring is back stitch in pink with yellow french knots, then green bugle beads with green french knots. The ten-pointed star is made from turquoise back stitch points with yellow satin stitch inner points alternating with pink chain stitch points with yellow seed bead inner points. Between each point is a star made from lime green straight stitches and a green silver-lined 8° seed bead. The next ring is feather stitch in red with blue purple-lined square beads. The ring after that is straight stitch in blue surrounding multi-colored sequins anchored by purple french knots. The final ring is cretan, bosnian, chevron, herringbone, and cross stitch (I got bored) in purple, threaded with pale green shimmery ribbon, and topped with beaded rosettes in dark pink and pink.

I want to applique this onto a patchwork made from brightly-colored scraps, but after that I'm not sure what I'll do with it.

Check out what other people did with this fabric here.