Mandala

It was just as I feared - the stitching pulled the work into a dome shape. Oh Bother! I thought. Or at least my thoughts were along the lines of Oh Bother :-) I have traced another circular grid onto Tear Away (Lite) and am currently stitching exactly the same design with the same fabric, same threads and same machine settings to see if that improves things. I used 2 layers of the Tear Away as I thought one layer might not be sufficient. I have stitched approximately 1/3 of the radiating lines so far and have a sneaking suspicion that this is going to pull in a bit too. I think it is a function of the radiating lines - ie proportionally there is more stitching per fabric area at the centre of the design compared to the outer ring. If this sample pulls significantly into a dome shape then I think the only solution will be to use a hoop when machine stitching this design. So I am prepared for the fact that I might have to stitch a 3rd sample before I get a satisfactory result.