Slow Progress on my Inside Lid Casket Panels

Here Fishy Fishy Fishy.....

  I am slowly making progress on the panels for inside my flat top casket lid.  This is the 'Water' side, with lower mound and small grotto. My plan was to work the inside panels in all long and short stitch, keeping them as flat as possible....but then, it happened. The coral told me it wanted to be raised.....

 And then things snowballed from there....I had planned to edge the water and mounds in silk gimp, with silk gimp waves....but then I found myself making real silver striped silk gimp for the waters falling from her jug and the mound....and well, falling water must have drizzle stitch splashes....so do you think I could leave the lil fish flat? No. Of coarse not!

  Ahhhh lil fishy. I spent the entire day trying to capture what my mind was seeing. Here he is before adding the little drizzle stitch water splashes. The majority of the 17th c stumpwork fish I have studied, all have coral color fins, so he got the same.

  After adding real fish scales to his belly and the water splashes. something was bugging me ~ I kept thinking it looked like he had a big bow on the top of his head...something was awry but it wasn't until I took this picture that I realized what it was~ his tail! If he has coral fins, he must have a coral tail, so off it came.

 This picture gives a good idea of how tiny he is. I don't think I can stitch any smaller than this, at this scale, I am literally all thumbs. I don't have enough fingers to hold all the tweezers I need!  This is the second  coral tail we tried, the first one was just hideous!  I like this one, but it was just laying there, I couldn't pose it, so off it came again too.....

Turns out, as tails go, the fourth one is the keeper. I worked woven picots over a wire edge to match the picots of his top fin, and now his tail curls and splashes just how I like it too.  I'm on next to Earth's basket of fruit~ I prefer to work both lid panels together, so they get finished at the same time....whenever that will be~ I can't wait to see them finished and in the lid!!