A Small for June

I actually have a small this month!  This is "New Hampshire Woods" by The Workbasket.  It may have been a limited edition kit, but I'm not sure...I AM pretty sure I picked it up at Celebration of Needlework sometime over the past few years.  The kit came with 35-ct. linen and the materials to finish it as a bookmark -- I was just crazy enough to stitch it on 40-ct. instead and finish it as an ornament, and then remembered this little fish photo holder (each fish has a little grabber clip on it's back).  I added the shells to keep the stitched piece from sliding away, and ta-da, a finished finish!

Of course, I made some changes....from the top down:
- I added my initials and date
- gave the mermaid French knot eyes, and stitched her arms/chest in a flesh tone instead of the charted green.  Used an over-dye (Romy's Creations "Camouflage") instead of the DMC green charted.
- sailor has French knot eyes (he had NO eyes in the pattern!).
- modified both the mermaid and the sailor to have necks of a sort...
- both the boat and the tree trunk are an over-dye - Crescent Colors "Brown Sugar."
- added some light "beams" to the light house.
- the lady in the widow's walk was charted in the same flesh tone as the mermaid and sailor's face.  This was unsettling....did women often stand on the widow's walks in the nude?!?!?  I decided "no," and stitched her in a pink dress instead.  (Six Strand Sweets "Mulberry Wine.") I also did the entire house in blue - the pattern used gold for the rectangular side - and stitched the windows in gold as if the house was lit from the inside (the pattern had all the windows in gray). 
- I stitched the willow tree in the same over-dye that I used for the mermaid.
- and finally, I completely left out the gray....dog, I think?...that was between the lighthouse and the willow.  He was just too much for me.  And he looked like a crossroads demon dog.