Turquoise Serpent

I've been doing some reading, and it seems my serpent is Xiuhcoatl, the Aztec fire deity, and the embodiment of the dry season and the weapon of the sun. As Xiuhcoatl is something of a challenge to pronounce and spell for a Northern European such as myself, I am happy to report that it translates as 'turquoise serpent'. So from now on, that's what this piece is going to be called.

Back to business. The eye and the detail over the eye (it's not really an eyebrow, but I don't know what else to call it) need to be raised even more, and so have been padded with additional layers of felt, in the case of the over-eye detail, the final one covered with more black satin.

The rather wobbly lines are marking where the mouth is to go; it's next to impossible to keep a line of stitches straight when going through as much padding as this, but the good thing about marking out a design with stitches rather than a pencil or a transfer or even chalk, is that they can be pulled out in a moment and won't leave any mark.

I then added the eye, in pewter kid. This is the first thing not to be just background, and so marks something of a step forwards!

Some proper colour should be coming up next.

Apologies for the awful photos, by the way - I need to find a better way of photographing the black silk.