Chatelaine's Hummingbird Mandala

Martina called this her sparkliest mandala ever, and I believe the correct name is Sparkling Elegance, but everyone just calls it the Hummingbird Mandala. Anything with birds catches my eye (why else do I own every chart by Crossed Wing?) and the hummers on this one are stitched over one to boot, so how could I resist? At any rate, it was released last August and it took me a while to decide on fabric, so I just got started on it last week, in the center as usual.

This is my floss toss (minus DMC, about 2 dozen colors) on the blue 28ct opalescent I chose. You can see it has tons of Delica beads, and plenty of crystals too!

I spent about a week and a half getting the stitching and beads this far....

The four flowers at 12, 3, 6, and 9 o'clock are different in color, and the four hummers visiting them are all different too. I will get to those when this comes back around in my rotation in a couple of months. It's hard to tell, but there are a ton of beads on it already! Here is a close up that proves my point!

I think it's time for another biscornu this weekend, just to rest the eyes!