Little mermaid, finished

Isn't she lovely? 

Here's a closer look at her beautiful, flowing hair.  It took more thread (2 skeins of mahogany Watercolors from Caron) and time (about 12 hours) to achieve this natural look than I expected.

I'm pleased with the end result.  And especially thrilled that I managed to conquer the bullion stitch after all these years.  Credit goes to the video that Mary Corbet has posted on You-Tube for stitching the bullion knot, as she calls it.  Hers are infinitely smoother in texture than mine, but I think the unevenness of mine makes the hair look more natural. 

And that glistening string of pearls was produced by doing French knots with Kreinik metallic, the new 5760 which is much whiter than the "old" 032.