Mermaids/Wave of Mutilation

I love Christian Slater. I shared this back in January when I finally watched the third Bill & Ted movie; Keanu Reeves and Christian Slater are two of my top five movie star crushes from my teen years that have remained in my heart and always will. Movie star crushes never die. Anyway, my favorite Christian Slater movie is Pump Up the Volume. Released in 1990, Slater played Mark, the quiet guy who was actually a  pirate radio DJ with a cult following in the suburbs of Phoenix (I assume this is how most teenagers lived their lives in Phoenix in 1990). The movie is delightfully 1990, but is also an interesting take on student rights and free speech. Most importantly, it has a killer soundtrack including Leonard Cohen, Peter Murphy, Concrete Blonde, Robert Johnson (yes, that Robert Johnson), and the Pixies. I love the entire soundtrack, but my favorite song is "Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf)." It fits perfectly in the movie, and is actually better than the original version of the song. The original version appeared on the Pixies's album Doolittle, and is exactly the song you'd want to hear on that album. This version was issued as a B-side for the single of "Here Comes Your Man," probably one the band's most famous songs. While I like the original, I love the UK Surf version. It's probably one of my favorite songs of all time. 

I listen to music when I embroider, and when I was planning this month's theme, this song and Nick Cave's "Mermaids" were both on my mind. In fact, there was a day when I was working on a piece where both songs played three times each before I was done. I knew I'd make a mermaid piece, so here it is. Who doesn't love mermaids? Terrible people, that's who. I suck at drawing human faces and bodies. They look like nightmares, so I only focused on the mermaid tail this time. Maybe one day I'll get better at drawing people and I'll draw a mermaid with an actual face. 

My favorite part of this piece are the tiny fly stitch scales. They're beautiful. 

 Details:
Stitches: back, stem, split, fly stitches
Thread palette: DMC 820 (6 strands), DMC C550, C554 (3 strands), DMC C915 (2 strands)