Wild Horses!

Here's the center motif of a little piece depicting a T'ang porcelain horse, I'm told a priceless artwork in some midwestern museum.  I'm going to decide what kind of background will work with this -- in fact I'd welcome any ideas from blogistas on this -- colors? stitches? color mixes?  bearing in mind that the motif -- see the accompanying ruler -- is about three inches total in each direction.

This is the kind of totally self indulgent stuff I love to do now and then.  The pattern is from a detective story by Monica Ferris, sorry, forget which of her books, but she always has a little design or tips on some needlework method in her detection.  She turned me onto the hardanger, in fact, and I plan to do more of that.  And I recommend her books as a nice light read with needlework interest added in.  The T'ang horse was an important plot point in the book the diagram comes in.


But once my horse is done, I'm on to blackwork, the real thing this time, since I now have the fabric and the right floss to work with, plus a great lesson series lent by a friend.

I find that I'm not a UFO type of person, feeling very uncomfortable if I have several needlework projects at different stages.  No good telling myself I'll do what the mood calls for, not that kind of artist at all.  I've always worked regardless of mood, weather, crises, so that doesn't work as a rationale for me.  And I currently have my little horse, a turtle, my nametag all hanging fire.  I did complete my black and white bird and the little drawing black piece, both on lawn, and need to stretch and frame or something.  The turtle I'll do along with the blackwork, maybe..and I'll GET the nametag done, not much left to do.