Mouth of the Flower - Complete!

You'll have to excuse the wrinkles in this one. I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to have it stretched and framed, but since it was newly finished I was eager to show it off. This is Octavio Ocampo's Mouth of the Flower, the companion piece to the Family of Birds cross stitch that I completed in October. I was right about this one being a lot quicker to stitch. I attribute that to the wonderful flower stems, which are only 3-5 stitches wide and take far less time than an entire tree trunk to stitch up.

I mentioned before how the women in the pictures reminded me of Francine and Katchoo from Terry Moore's wonderful Strangers in Paradise. This lady is the one that's reminding me of Katchoo, while the other one struck me as sharing similarities with Francine.

I wasn't the only one who thought so either, after finishing the Family of Birds piece I contacted Terry Moore via his blog and was lucky enough to have this brief email exchange with him:

Hi Terry,

Not sure if you are familiar with Ocatavio Ocampo's artwork or not, but I made this cross stitch because the picture reminded me of Francine from SIP. Thought you might like to have a look:

Family of Birds

Wishing you all the best,

Amber

***

Thanks Amber. I see her too.

T

I said it was brief, right? That's okay. I know Terry is a busy man and I'm very excited and appreciative that he took the time to respond.

And now just a few close-up shots so you can see some of the stitching in this picture. Of the two designs, this one is my favourite. I really like how vibrant the colours are and it was a lot of fun to stitch because the individual elements are relatively small. In most cases I could get a particular part of the picture, such as the butterfly or a flower, done in a single day and really feel like I was accomplishing something.

This butterfly, which also acts as the woman's nose, is the only part of the picture that has any backstitching. I really think it's amazing that this piece can look so detailed, without being backstitched everywhere.

And now I'm not sure what I'm going to make next. I have been working on a few crochet items for Christmas, but since the gift recipients read Cthulhu Crochet and Cousins I won't be able to post them until after the holiday season. I'll also have to browse through my cross stitch library and see if I'm feeling ambitious enough to start another piece.

If anyone is interested in making these patterns for themselves the patterns and fabric are available through Loving Stitch's online store, and I imagine a few other online cross stitch retailers. The only difference is that I opted to stitch my pieces on a 32 count cream belfast linen, rather than the lavender recommended in the pattern.