Mandala Making

After looking at what kind of symbol decoration I could add to my folk hat I decided on using the Mandala. However before I jumped in and started sewing and drawing on the fabric I had a practice draw in my sketchbook with black and gold ink. After drawing this I was a little hesitant to go ahead with this design since there was so many lines, curves and little small details but I thought that the design could had a big impact if I can do a good job of embroidering this.

I found some gold fabric to use as my backing and my first thought was to use black embroidery thread since that is what I used in my sketch - but looking at the fabric I had chosen I thought that black would look too harsh, so instead I used a dark brown that went better with the gold, so I started at the center of the mandala and stitched outwards. 

When I got the whole thing stitched out I didn't fill the entire small details out because I wanted to add a second colour, I was torn between gold and silver but the silver looked a bit weak so I used gold in the mandala - but the gold thread! Argh it was like stitching with straw and kept twisting and knotting and breaking, you wont find me stitching with metallic thread again!

Close Up of the Mandala

I was really proud of this but because of how long it took on to do I wouldn't be able to do another two as well! So I will have to change my original design and just have one circle on the hat - but how shall I mount it on the hat? The orignal design had almond shapes on the hat but because of the mandala is a circle I personally didn't think that would be the best. I cut out some card to pull the fabric around to see what looked best.

Teardrop Shape?

Big Circle?

Small Circle?

So all that's left is to mount up the embroidery and sew or glue it onto the hat, and then the main body of the design will be complete - if I anymore time I will have to see if I can add some more features to the hat.