Mandala Madness

Mandala actually means a circular figure representing the universe in Hindu and Buddhist symbolism.  However in crochet it means "bright and beautiful circular decoration that can be used for display on the wall or as a doily" (my definition).
One of my favourite blogs to read is that of the lovely Lucy at Attic24.  She is a very busy lady, who puts a lot of effort into her posts that are extremely well written and inspirational.  She and a number of other ladies from Skipton in North Yorkshire are organising a wool themed weekend called Yarndale.  Lucy asked her readers to create a mandala for display at the fair.  She was inundated with the response - 1182 mandalas from 49 countries (including one from me).
Lucy unbelievably photographed every one and you can see them on Pinterest under Yarndale.

This is my entry and it is displayed on sheet 11.  I followed the pattern and in fact the colours from Jacquie at BunnyMummy and it is called  Petals and Puffs Mandala (available here).  It is quite easy and it is a good way to use up all of those small bits of yarn you have lying around.
After completing my first one I liked the idea of doing some more to hang on the wall. So I tried the Sunny Flower Mini Mandala design on Zootyowlcards blog and this was the result 

It again was quite an easy pattern and quick to do.  I tried to iron it flat, not a good idea when you are using acrylic yarn, because it takes all the definition out of the texture of the stitches - live and learn!

I think I will investigate some more patterns, so I have more of a display - better get pattern hunting ......