The Pelican of Piety - a prayer kneeler

The time to write this, I have decided, is before I crash due to total fatigue of body and brain, and before the onset of some serious PPD.

This prayer kneeler is for a friend, who is also a parishioner at my son's church, so I was pleased to have it do. Louann brought me the pictures several years ago, but I haven't quite had the nerve - or the time - to really concentrate on it. But now it is done!! She took the pictures herself a number of years ago - she said, judging from the style of the mosaic, probably somewhere in eastern Europe.

The lighting and the color are difficult to see, so I had awful trouble getting the paint mixed to suit me. The Pelican was noted in medieval times to pierce it's breast to feed it's young when food was unavailable - therefore, it became a symbol of Christ's Passion and the Eucharist. I would love to go there and see that vaulted ceiling with it's magnificent mosaic!

This symbol is seen in Christian art elsewhere, but many times is mistaken for a stork. This one is new to me! The close-up should show more detail on the needlepoint rendition of the picture - the challlenge here, of course, was putting it onto a 15" x 30" piece of 13 mesh canvas, and making it feasible to stitch.

I had to eliminate a great deal of the detail of the mosaic, as it would have just looked like a busy mess on this size mesh. The white bands were left that way, as they will be stitched in dark gold thread - and we decided it would be easier on the eyes to just leave it white. I'm actually very pleased with it - which is unusual for me.