At Seata today we stitched mandalas, geometric designs put into a circular format. Instead of us all working on our own, they were to be collaborative pieces, a little bit from everybody on each table of eight. We all started with a piece of plain (or plainish) fabric, stretched in a 6″ hoop. Most used cream or white, but I chose the brown swirly print above.

We all did a central motif of some sort, knowing we had 20 minutes before passing to the next person. I did four long stitches into the centre, and continued to divide each section until I’d gone all the way round a couple of times. Then I did smaller stitches between each spoke, and finished with a cluster of French knots. I’d tried to make it so that it was even when the 20 minutes were up, and decided I would stick with known stitches….. it wasn’t the day for doing anything too complicated!

A little star was passed on to me, and I started couching down a slubby thread from each point……

……using a different colour between each one.

The time increased by 5 minutes every two rounds. The next one arrived like this……

…….. and I added yellow lazy daisy stitches.

To the next one…….

……. I added blanket stitch.

I forgot to photograph the one below when I got it. I used a shiny rayon thread to do herringbone.

Then it was time for a lovely shared lunch, and each place had a little tube of handcream, all different. I picked Lily of the Valley, which took me right back to my mum doing Avon when I was little. Thank you, handcream fairy!

There were only five (four after lunch) taking part on our table, and three of of us opted to continue passing them on rather than working on our own. I had the lazy daisy one back, and blanket stitched using the rayon again into the chain stitches of the previous row……..

…….ending up like this.

Last was the blue star one, and I added straight stitches in a grey perlé following the round before.

This is how mine came back. We had a few more minutes to stitch, so I whipped the chain stitch and the outer running stitch in the same mucky pink colour.

At the end of the day here are some of those that had been done.

A few have thread attached, where a row hadn’t been finished when it was time to pass it on. Some tables had drawn circles as guidelines, which I think in hindsight would have made things easier.

It was fun to respond to what was in front of you, with no time to change your mind, no procrastinating or deliberating, just choose your stitch and thread, thread your needle and stitch away!

It was a great idea, Alex, with very helpful and clear instructions; thank you. Just a shame you couldn’t be there.