Finished Business

Bothered Fox

So 11 years ago, my mum embroidered pictures for my gran. She finished one of a fox being bothered by a bee.
She got ill though. Ended up dying of kidney cancer, and she never finished this ''Sophie Squirrel'' for my gran's birthday. Some of the stitching is quite weak, and you can tell she really tried.

Just before Christmas, my grandmother suggested I finish what she'd started, after we found the box with her sewing stuff in the box. So I took up the challenge. I'll admit it's taken a lot longer than it should have done - I did some at uni, but it wasn't top of my priorities. I finished the white of a sleeve, or did some of the apron.

This summer I finished the white completely, and started to do all the outlining and details - tail, outline of the whole thing, eye, apron details, shoe details, the blue stripes on the sleeves. I had to get my grandmother to remind me what a backstitch was, though, since I'd forgotten from when I was about 10. But today I've finished it, after putting real effort into it the past week or so.

It's not been framed yet, and I might yet iron it once more, to see if I can get the decade-old fold creases out, but this is it.