A Fantasy Garden in Copper and Navy

My second December finish! 

I loved putting this one together.  The colors are delish, and the variety of stitches I chose kept it interesting, and of course the BLING.  All pictures are clickable to a larger version.

The general outline was from an antique drawing of an I-don't-know-what (jellyfish?) in Dover's "Ornamental Forms from Nature".  I love that book but really wish they'd label the artwork.   The orientation of the what's-it in the book is the other way around, like this:

Materials used include Vikki Clayton HDF silk floss in "Primitive Barn Rust" and "Motes of Night", DMC cotton floss and perle, Rainbow Gallery metallic threads, a variety of beads including Swarovski pearls and bicones, Delica seed beads, sequins, mirrors, and jewelry spacers.

Stitches used include Shisha, buttonhole, star, cross, chain stitch, straight stitch, stem stitch.

If the sun ever comes out again, I will take truer-color pictures.  But I just couldn't wait to show it to you!