squeeg_1

Just over a month to finish the second (actually the first) of the three in the Mini Mandala II set. Not too bad considering that I haven't really been home at all on the weekends since, oh, September. Once again, the beading was driving me nuts and I just wanted to get it finished so stayed up far to late to get it done. I think what bothers me the most about it is that by the time I get to the beading, I just want to be done because the ending is thisclose. It's the same reason that I've started back-stitching stuff as I go on other projects. If I leave it all to the end I get very bored. And the Jessica stitch that had scared me off of starting with this one actually worked out pretty well (although I had to graph out where all the stitches needed to go in order to wrap my head around it).

The picture of the completed mandala can be found here.

I'm not sure when I will be finished the third one of the set. As much as I like the mandalas, I don't really want to do another one in a row. Plus I have promised to do a dragon for a friend of mine as her birthday present and will probably pick up the pattern for that this weekend.

I finished B from Martina Weber's Mini Mandala II set.  It's actually only taken a month, which is quicker than I originally thought it would.  (Dog sitting and therefore having to actually be home on weekends has helped with the time line.)

My problem is that I had been working on the beading since Sunday and it was driving me slightly bonkers.  I've never done a project with this much beading and this is what I've learned:

1.  Invisible thread is a pain in the butt.
2.  Doubling over the invisible thread helps immensely.  After you get it tacked down, the needle can't slip off.
3.  Beading needles are pointy.  Very, very pointy. :(

But I'm very happy with the end result which can be found here. :)

That I joined LJ just to vote in an annerbhp  poll? :p

Edit:  And since I'm now on LJ, credit for the Mirrormask icon goes to franken_stein.  I love them all.