Casket Back is finished

 I  have finally finished the stitching on the back of my casket. I love the way that perspective doesn't matter. The peacock is as big as the pear tree and I am not quite sure if all of the flowers exist in nature and the snail certainly does not.

The crocodile is taken from the early 17th century painted ceiling at Rossend Castle in Burntisland, Fife in Scotland.  His body is exotic leather that I painted a bronzy gold color. The Mother of Pearl Fish was made in China in the late 1700's as a gaming token but I thought that it would swim beautifully in my pond.

My husband lived in New Zealand for several years and so I added the Kiwi bird. I bought the yarn that I stitched him with while I was there visiting. It is a combination of cashmere, silk and Brushtail Possum Down.

There are many dimensional elements on this panel with the pears just hanging from the tree along with flower petals that stick out from the background. 

I have used very tiny (about sizes 18-24) antique seed beads in several places. They are so small that I have to insert the silk thread  through the bead and then into the needle to sew them in place because even my smallest needle will not go through the hole of the bead. It takes a while because for each bead, you thread on the bead, then the needle and sew it down, unthread the needle add the next bead, rethread the needle and repeat. I am lucky that I have been collecting them for about 50 years since they are so hard to find now-days. 

Cabinet back motifs

I have been enjoying working on the back panel of the needlework casket. It is full of fun animals and flowers and is stitching up quite quickly for the amount of embroidery on it and all of the color changes but that is just part of the joy of creating my own interpretation of the fabulous originals .


This outline of the carnation uses some antique Chinese thread that is created by wrapping thin strips of paper with gold glued to it and it is then wrapped around a red thread.

My snail is so tiny but full of unique threads and stitches. The crinkled gold plate is from India. I was ordering some thread that I needed and added it because it was quirky and as long as I was paying for shipping why not add some extra goodies. You can see the scale of it by comparing the US twenty-five cent piece. It's amazing how much stitching  and how many different threads you can pack into a tiny area.

This pear tree is full of interesting details. Some of the elements are stitched flat on the silk like the tiny pear blossoms, the trunk of the tree, some of the leaves and two of the pears. The padded pears use 16th century English embroidery techniques with a tiny gold plate along with the gold silk thread. Four of the leaves are wired so that they can be manipulated into shapes. I have used a paper mache form for the other two pears which I did in needle-lace with gold plate around them.

Just finished the peacock which wears the most fabulous colors.