It’s the end of the fish as we know it

And I feel fine! Look at this baby!

A far cry from Mr. Fungus Fish in the first entry. I can't believe I actually finished him! It took around two weeks, by my reckoning, but I could be wrong. He definitely went faster than the fleur de Lys pattern I did for the first bag, probably due to the excessive amounts of satin stitch taking forever and a day whereas Mr. Fungus Fish used faster stitches.

Now I get to think about the detailing. I'm planning on waves with spray framing the fish like he's jumping. I don't want to do anything to take away from the fish itself; he's definitely the main focus. At the same time, I don't want to do something that's too simple that doesn't compliment the fish, because then it'll look like I got burnt out after doing the fish and just threw something together afterwards. I think I'll use Mountmellick stitch. It's a decorative line stitch so it will look nice, but it isn't something that will draw attention away from the fish. I'll accent it with French knots in a lighter blue to simulate the spray from the waves.


I'm worrying about the back of the bag, though. I've been planning to put some pretty green ferny things on the back of the bag since the beginning, but lately I've been feeling more and more uncomfortable with the idea. It just didn't seem to be fitting with the bag or with my aesthetic. I've always been a big fan of simplicity. I'd rather do too little and add things later than do too much and regret it. But I don't want to leave the back of the bag blank. What should I do?

I'm playing around with the idea of bubbles for the back. They'll be simple, and I won't have to spend a lot of time on them. At the same time, they'll fit nicely with the color scheme I've got going on, which is what was messing with my head. I have this white and blue thing going on with little accents of orange, black and silver, and then suddenly the entire back is supposed to be covered with green? It feels dissonant to me. It's almost like I can taste how off it would be to have a bunch of green plants on an otherwise blue and white motif. Not bad, per se, but not a perfect either. And with the amount of time I'll end up spending on this thing I want it to be as perfect as physically possible. I think bubbles will be much more complimentary.

The kids are having an election at Southside today. They're choosing the new student council members. The last two years here I went in and listened to the speeches but this year I'm sitting out. Once you've heard have a dozen speeches from kids trying to get elected you've heard them all, and I never end up rooting for a kid that wins. I've got perpetual underdog syndrome.

Next week is the music festival for the entire island and I cannot wait! Singing, cute kids, and prime sewing time. B-E-A-U-tiful.