Mandala Magic

Just when I think I am totally up to date with the making and trying out of all thing crochety.... Another beautiful thing pops up on the world wide web.... The last few weeks I have noticed Mandala's. Now I am not to sure what a mandala 's function is, I have seen them used as table adornments and then seen them being used as pot holders. they are in every colour and size you can possibly imagine but always round!

 

I wasn't really taking too much notice of them, until the Lovely Lucy from Attic24 posted a wonderful blog about them. Now I think I have waxed lyrically about Lucy often enough to not bore you to pieces waxing again, suffice to say she is my crochet GURU! Lucy also runs a yarn festival, called Yarndale, along with like minded yarn friends. They ran the first one last year, she asked for people to help her make granny bunting and boy oh boy did people help! Pretty bunting arrived from all four corners of the world. Some how I missed out on it all..... I mean, I  saw it and read about it but did not make bunting to send. Read her post here 

 



Lucy's Picture of the Yarndale Bunting

So this year for Yarndale she asked all her readers and the peeps on the world wide web to make just  1 Mandala each and send it to her, she even gave you a pattern - here... And this year I was not going to miss out, I even had an idea.... An African Themed Mandala! So I duly popped off to out local Yarn shop( Any excuse... I hear you say!) and bought the yarn- I bought reds and oranges to represent our amazing sunsets and green and brown for the earth, I then asked my helper Beatrice if she would bead it for me in traditional African bead work. It looked absolutely WondErFuL!....It was duly sent off to the United Kingdom in a protective padded envelope. This was a few weeks ago. Today as I sat down to write this post I realised that I had in my haste to get it done and posted not taken 1 photo of it.... NOT ONE!!!

 

I did however take pictures of my practice runs! I did two before hand just to get a feel of how I would place the colours and if the pattern was as easy as it looked and it hooked up really quickly. They  both looked great! Lucy's pattern was really easy! - See she is THE CROCHET GURU! 

I have been pondering what to do with my mandala's.... I am not the type of person who would use them as pot holders, honestly I think I would end up burning myself, anyway they are too pretty for pot holders!  I certainly wouldn't use them under a vase or ornament.....I was thinking about stitching them onto a canvas as some sort of hooky art piece..... But in the old end I didn't have to worry about how to use them because apparently they  work REALLY well as Barbie carpets in a certain Little Madames  doll's house! So you see even Barbie LOVES crochet..... xxx