Dark Queen of the Seas

Dark Queen of the Seas by Autumn Lane Stitchery — a large fantasy piece centred on an undersea sorceress with deep-blue hair and a crown, surrounded by a school of pink-and-orange koi, with a long serpentine leviathan curling around the right side of the composition. There’s a trident at her feet and a swirling dark portal/whirlpool behind her left shoulder that anchors the scene as something more than a pretty mermaid.

This is one of four in Autumn Lane’s Dark Queens series — I’ve also finished Dark Queen of the Earth, with two more to go.

Stitched on 32ct Bewitched Opalescent linen from Under the Sea Fabrics — the linen the designer specifically recommends for this chart, and it’s the right call. Bewitched is a hand-dyed wash of pale lavender, mint, and pink with shimmer flecks woven through, so the “underwater light” effect in the background isn’t stitched at all — it’s the fabric. The opalescent flecks catch differently as you move past it, which suits a piece about a sea witch better than any flat ground would.

Threads are DMC for the bulk of the work and Rainbow Gallery for the metallics — the gold lacing through the trident, the constellation/rune work along the leviathan’s body, and the highlights in the queen’s hair and crown. There’s also beading scattered across the piece: tiny seed beads marking bubbles around the queen, accents in her crown and jewellery, and pearl-style beads worked into the trident. The beads are what really make the finish read — under any kind of directional light the whole piece sparks.

Finished March 18, 2023.