Cabinet of Curiosities and life changes

 It is hard to believe that the last time that I blogged was in March, but this last year has been so full of unexpected and unwelcome happenings that it is understandable.  I have not yet mentioned it here but August a year ago (2023) my husband and partner in all things suddenly collapsed and passed away. To say that it was a shock doesn't even begin to describe the total collapse of my world.  

Since my house is much too big for one person, my oldest two daughters sold their home and moved back in with me. We are still just getting things a bit more settled. Amazing how trying to fit two households into one house is a bit difficult. My living room looks like a jumble sale in progress.

 In April, my 102 year old mother fell and we brought her here to live with us. She ended up on hospice for nearly a month and passed away in May, and all of us got COVID just before her funeral. Since I was trustee of her estate, I was in charge of getting her house ready to sell. After two months of cleaning, repair and misdirected wire transfers, it finally sold. But as you can imagine, I now have some things from house number three here. 

As part of the upheaval of my life and not entirely willingly, but knowing it is necessary, I am in the middle of selling our family cabin and bringing some things from there to the house. So now we have bits of four different houses trying to jostle themselves into one house. It is still  a work in progress. Lots of stuff has been given away and donated and much more is on the way out. But it is just "stuff" and just not that important any more.

During this time I have still found time to stitch because it is the thing that feeds my soul and keeps me sane.

I have been slowly working on my needlework box (Cabinet of Curiosities) or Kathrin's Kist. I have just finished the last side of the upper slope section.  I decided that this part of the casket would feature animals.

This is one of the sides. I tried to add some fun threads and techniques. I love the way that the dog and bird are the same size. The edges are a bit messy but will be trimmed and covered with silver tape.

The second side section has two bunnies, a fun tulip and a curly lamb.

The back of the slope features a very funky lion, a camel and leopard. 
The animals of the original caskets were often drawn by people who had never seen any of the live animals so they are often not quite true to life or sometimes a total fantasy.

The front was so much fun to do. I decided to do the Unicorn from Scotland and the Red Dragon from Wales. They are both padded and couched with metal threads. The wing is a separate piece so it and the flowers are detached elements that add lots of texture.