Happy new Year

A Wish for World Peace, & Happiness in 2019

 I'm not being hokey, I really do wish Peace & Happiness for any and everything that walks or swims or flies the earth in 2019. Wouldn't it be great. I am going to try to do my part, to be more patient,  and more accommodating and understanding to anyone I should encounter. Perhaps I should print out this picture of Moxie...this is how she smiles at me....and show it to anyone having a bad day...I mean, who can not smile back at that little face.....

I hope everyone had a Happy &  Safe start to their New Year. I finished the front panel to my casket before Christmas. Here is a short couple second video of how my mermaid, Taormina's tail came out using the beetle wings....sooo pretty

I did change the design a little as I went along~ I had originally planned to have a full side view of a fish in the grotto with her, but as I was working the water, he just started looking more and  more like a beached whale....so he is forever swimming beneath the surface of the water. Instead, I decided to  put just a tail there, sticking up out of the water

  I worked the first one in green, same beads actually that I used for Taormina's tail....I liked how it looked in my hand....so stitched it on the panel. Didn't like it. It just got lost in the water~ looking from afar, one couldn't really tell it was there at all.  So...I took it off, and decided to make the fishies carp, an ode to my youngest daughter's goldfish that we just lost, Mr. Timms.  

Mr Timms was a pretty awesome goldfish...daughter was fishing one day at the lake in the park in town, and caught him...as in, on a hook, instead of a trout.  We brought him home and put him in our outside pond, where he was very happy and survived a winter and many snake attacks that killed off his fellow fishies. Years, as in, YEARS, later, husband decided he no longer wanted a pond outside for all the snakes it was attracting, so Mr Timms got to come live inside. This fish. I mean. Oh My golly. he got HUGE, and lived for years and years and years! We were all sad when he finally passed away this last summer...so, Mr. Timms is forever on my front panel now

  The contrast is much better, as you can see here.  Don't ever be afraid to take something off of your embroidery if you don't like it.... even if you have spent days and hours and hours  on it.....

  Mr Timms is on the left, talking to Taormina. She is hand sculpted by me in mache, with glass eyes, holding a wooden mirror and comb.

Perhaps 2019 will be the year I finish this casket~ I hope so. I have just the two side panels left, but cannot start them for a while yet, probably not until I get back from teaching at Colonial Williamsburg in Feb/March.

Happy Stitching!