New to Chatelaine blog site!

First ever Chatelaine - Evening in the park

Hello all,

I am so pleased to have found your site and am inspired by all your lovely work - so much so, that I decided I would give one a go (very scary as never done specialty stitches before).

I have to admit I have totally fell in love with it - So wanted to share my progress with you all.

Introduction and a first time start

Hello!

I'm Adrienne and am finally joining in on the Stitching Bandits Chatelaine Challenge. I've just started my very first Chatelaine - Evening in the Park. I love, love, love this design.

I've had this project kitted up for over a year now but life kept getting in the way and I just didn't get around to starting it. I've been having a serious stitching mojo problem lately, so a dear friend suggested stating my Chatelaine might just be what I need to get my mojo back in full swing.

So far, it seems to be working. :) Here's my start:

It took a while but I found the perfect fabric for it from Under the Sea Fabrics. I'm stitching on Ice Princess 32 ct opalescent lugana. There's a lot of metallics in this part (which I don't love stitching so much), but the silks have been lovely to work with. (FYI - I am a silk addict. I adore silks!)

For the first time I'm using a magnifier while I stitch, because the hand-dyed fabric has tiny holes and the opalescent nature of the fabric splits the threads and makes it doubly difficult to see the proper holes. The stitches look pretty big under the magnifier, but when I look at it without, I can't believe how tiny the stitches are!

This piece is going to take a very long time. Yay!

Heli's Evening in the Park at the start of April 2013

Hi,

I've been a follower of this blog for a while already and I absolutely love admiring all the beautiful updates here. I just wish there were more of them, more people posting pictures of their gorgeous Châtelaine WIPs and finishes. To that end, I decided to start contributing as well.

I am working on my very first Châtelaine, Evening in the Park. My fabric choice for this one is Dawn by Picture This Plus. This is how it looks at the moment:




I also have a few other WIPs going, including a couple of HAEDs, so the progress on this one isn't exactly fast. But I'll post a new pic here whenever I have reached a point that warrants another update. The next one will probably be when I have completed all four swans. Until then, I will just admire your updates and leave the occasional comment on them.

Happy stitching, and lots of pics please! :D

She's done!

I put the final beads on about 11pm last night. Ignore the crystals that are missing from one gate - I've added them now but didn't notice until after I uploaded the pic from my camera. This one is soooo sparkly in real life!

Japanese Garden, here I come!

Progress

Not too far to go now! Then I just need to decide which Chatelaine to start next!

Evening In The Park

I've been working on Evening In The Park again...this piece is very sparkly even before any of the beads go on!

Hi y'all! Here to share my Chatelaine obsession!

Hello fellow members of the Chatelaine Collective! Thanks to Joyce for the invite as well, since I have so many Chatelaines going at the present (tho' I'm sure I'm not the only one!). I thought I'd share a little bit about myself and invite you all to visit my StitchinKat's Pawprints Blog. I am a married homemaker and mother of one daughter, almost 17 (she's taking finals this week for her junior year of high school). We live in my home state of North Carolina and I have been stitching for over 30 years, only becoming obsessive in the last 15 however. I discovered Martina's designs when a stitching friend was working on one of the early mysteries, and was facinated! I first tried a couple of her freebies, before jumping in feet first in 2005 into the Egyptian Garden. Next I did the Tree of Hope for New Orleans (now a Cotton Sampler). I have a couple of long standing WiPs, Evening in the Park and Holland Landscapes, and started Hummingbirds earlier this year. I have the Winter Watergarden kitted and ready to start, but got totally distracted by the new Chinese Garden Mandala and had to start it as well! Plus I'm doing the Micro set, having stitched the first two and kitted the third. The fourth and last is due out in August. Also own the Misty Meadows kit (the unicorn box) that I'll get to someday, and have a bunch of the freebies waiting as well. Here is my lineup of finished and framed Chatelaines....the pics should be clickable.

Christmas Tree Mandala

Tiny Rose Mandala

Tree of Hope

Egyptian Garden on SW Days Gone By

These are finished but not framed....

Micro 01

Micro 02

And now the WiPs!!

Evening in the Park through Pt. 8
on SW Blue Mystery Opalescent

Holland Landscapes through Pt. 7
on SW Dreamin' (working on this one right now...
filling in the last window!)

Hummingbird Mandala Pt. 1 on blue opalescent

Chinese Garden Mandala Pt. 1 on black belfast

Feel free to ask any questions about these as to fabric, etc. Working on the Holland piece this week and hope to go back to Chinese Garden next month and get caught up. I am rotating these and a couple of other large pieces this year, sprinkled with smalls in between. So far so good!


--Kathy, aka StitchinKat

Finally got my mojo back...

and I've been working on my Chats!

Evening in the Park -

And Desert Landscapes -

No beads on snakey there yet and he looks kind of broken up about it...

I'm also resisting the urge to start Oriental Harem...anyone care to give odds for my chances of success? Haha...

Jill's introduction

Hi Everyone! After seeing Martina post the link to this blog recently at the yuku board I knew it was just what I needed to get back to my poor, neglected Chatelaine wips! My name is Jill and I have been stitching since I was 10 (I am 32 now...). I have two kids, both boys, ages 10 and 1. I also work out of the home part-to-full time (depending on the week) as an electrical engineer. I have learned that even 5 minutes of stitching here and there will eventually add up to a finish! I've finished a handful of Chatelaine designs, have 8 in progress, and 30 or so fully kitted and ready to start anytime. I first found Martina's lovely designs when Convents Herb Garden was a mystery and the original castle design (which I have) was available as a kit directly from Martina. I have had to slow down my kitting of recent designs, but I still fully intend to stitch everything of hers...someday!

Some of these pictures aren't the best quality but I want to include a few of my earlier finishes anyway. Hopefully I can get some good light and take some newer pictures at some point. For now, here are my finished Chatelaines!

Evening in the Park (stitched when it was a mystery):

Indian Summer Reflections (stitched when it was a mystery):

Snowflake Nativity (stitched when it was a mystery):

Amethyst:

Emerald:

Alpine Seasons (my favorite finish so far):

Mini Mystery I:

Next time I'll post some wip pictures!