Mermaid Marina

Mermaid Marina by Autumn Lane Stitchery — one of the shop’s tall portrait mermaids, 149w × 285h stitches (almost two-to-one tall-to-wide), drawn rising upward through the water with purple hair streaming back, eyes closed, arms outstretched as if she’s just lifted off the seabed. The lower half is a sweeping purple-and-pink tail in slow gradient — deep violet up top through orchid and rose, ending in a pale blush fluke that curls back on itself. A school of small golden fish swims past her left side, a fan of green seaweed sways at the lower right, and a bubble trail runs up the column of water around her.

Stitched on 28ct Picture This Plus Crystal Splash linen — a hand-dyed teal opalescent linen woven with sparkle threads, mottled like sun coming through deep water. Because the fabric already reads as ocean, all the unstitched ground around the mermaid does the work that a fully stitched background would normally do — every shimmer in the linen catches the light around her like real sea glitter.

DMC for the bulk of the stitches plus Rainbow Gallery specialty threads (Treasure Braid metallics for the gold accents on her crown / belt / bracelets and the sparkle in the bubbles, plus a small amount of beading for the underwater highlights).

Started December 15, 2024. Finished December 24, 2025 — a little over a year of off-and-on stitching, finishing on Christmas Eve with the last 193 stitches being the bead embellishments on the bubbles.