I don't think I mentioned before that the background for this blog contains two cross stitch patterns I bought about 20 years ago and stitched. King Tut's death mask was done first and was my first major project. I bought the pattern and the materials and worked with metallic blending floss for the first time. The whole thing from start to back stitching took me 2 weeks and some people consider that astonishing. I wasn't working full time then and put all my attention on cross stitching.
Nefertiti's bust (that's statue of head and shoulders for the guys whose minds went directly THERE) took me a little more time to find. The company that made the pattern was bought out by another company and the pattern redone with different colors. I wanted Nefertiti to match King Tut, so I did my own revision of the colors so it did match. I think Nefertiti was done about 2 years later, but it could be more like 5 years.
My mother instantly fell in love with King Tut and, when I refused to let her have it after it was framed, she threw a fit and threatened to break into my apartment and steal it. Like I wouldn't notice. She also didn't know I had planned to give it to her for Xmas. Everyone was in on that secret and helped me to get it out of the trunk of my car and hang it in the front hallway. Mom must have passed it a dozen times going up and down the stairs past where it hung without seeing it.
My siblings were anxious to go home and stood next to King Tut talking. Twice more Mom passed and didn't see it until Jimmy, my younger brother, asked Mom to settle a mock dispute between he and my sisters as she was going up the stairs yet again. She turned to answer, caught sight of Tut, and nearly fell over the banister trying to get back down the stairs to snatch it off the wall, hold it to her chest, and run through the house screaming, "I got it. I got it. I got it," in her most unholy gleeful voice.
I gave her Nefertiti a few years later, appropriately framed, and she was as tickled with that as she was with Tut, although there was a lot less furor.
Mom didn't like that I had both famed and matted without glass, so she had them framed and matted a second time by the daughter of a friend of hers who offered to do the work for free. I think the daughter wanted to get her hands on Tut and Nefertiti and see what the back was like. I never did mention how much it cost to have both framed and matted or how long I took choosing just the right combination. It wouldn't have mattered to Mom anyway.
When I was home 6 years ago, Mom decided I should take both of the framed pieces home with me. My father was dying of bone cancer metastasized from prostate cancer he thought he had beat 10 years before, and Mom was certain she'd follow Dad soon. Mom lasted until last year, January 13, 2012, Friday the 13th appropriately, and she often told me she wished she had held onto Tut and Nefertiti longer. It was the first place guests to the house were taken once entering the house. They hang on my living room wall now and are about 24 x 36, done on Navy blue 28-ct Lugana with Kreinik metallic blending filaments and DMC floss. I still think they make an appropriate background for this blog as they were my first foray into the world of challenging cross stitch and the beginning of a love of thread art.
King Tut's Death Mask
Nefertiti
Nefertiti reminds me of Mom: fine small features dressed in jewels and covered in gold. Mom would've liked that -- being covered in gold and studded with jewels. They were her favorite things.
Happy stitching.
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