Detail Of St. Basil's Cathedral, Moscow.

And no, I've never been there, nor am I Russian in any way. It's just such a beautiful and astounding building. My friend Pia Beck embroidered an amazing series of street-scapes from photographs she'd taken in India, and it inspired me to include this building on my quilt.

The embroidery is worked using machine rayon, single strand DMC, some fine silk and er... ah... a bit of metallic old-gold. Hmmm, have to think hard. I stitched the white bits in Chain stitch firstly, with Satin stitch over the top. What else..? Long and short stitch, or needle painting for the larger areas, some Buttonhole on one of the little striped onion domes. The 'Norman' tower (an artistic addition) is worked in Ceylon and Detached Buttonhole stitches.

The cathedral took a few weeks and a trip to the optometrist to complete. I'd strained my eyes so much with the ridiculously close work that I was going cross-eyed. I couldn't focus, anyway, I don't really know it I was cross-eyed, but I absolutely couldn't focus. The optometrist said it was because I was holding it so close, my poor eyes had to fight for focus, and since I sewed for hours on end they got tired and decided not to play anymore.

He also said it is not possible to damage your eyes by bad light/eye strain etc. Which is good, huh!

To the right, just above the cathedral, is a lovley 'tulip' looking border I found in a book of Yugoslavian embroidery. I'll draw it out and take a photo for you if you want. I've used the design elsewhere too. Great book, but it was lost or stolen from the library and so I can't get to it anymore. Not at Amazon either.

One of the cift cards features St. Basil's too, over on the Bobby's Cards link, if you're interested.