Little mermaid, 2

 People often ask my about my stitching strategy.  I don't like coming up in a hole that has yarn, so I try to move from the upper right hand corner down and across the canvas.  On the mermaid's tail "fluke", I first did the green outline.  It was then easy to fit the slanted gobelin stitches in.  I know some people do the dark colors first, or the light colors first.  I just do them as I come to them.  You can also see that I have started doing the Smyrna cross  since the tail seems to be painted for them. 

And in an update to my mother dove.  I checked and the incubation period for doves is about 14 days.  Sure enough, Monday morning I looked out the window to discover the chick on the ground underneath the pygmy palm.  I assume it fell out of the nest.  You can see that the mother is sitting on it--perhaps to protect it from predators?  For a while, the chick was uncovered.  The chick is the whitish fluff under the front of the dove's breast.  Tuesday there was no sign of the chick, so I'm hoping it is safe.  It was nice to see that papa also took a turn sitting (he's larger and darker).