I almost can't believe it: After two years of work and with only a few more weeks of embroidery left to go, Empress Cixi's extravagant robe is almost complete! This is a bad snapshot, though. But I was too impatient to set up the proper light kit for an unfinished piece.

Over the last two years, it required a ridiculous number of hours to embroider this mammoth; so many, that i lost count somewhere after six hundred. This is my Titanic.

I haven't began making the shoes yet; a pair of pretty Manchu slippers on tall pedestals. However, I've been having second thoughts about them lately. This is supposed to be her 'wedding' night robe when she became Xian Feng Emperor's concubine, and I'm beginning to think that the shoes would be almost inappropriate in this composition. But I do love making shoes just for the sake of making shoes....so...it's a tough call for me. Perhaps it could be some sort of a variation of high pedestal bed chamber slippers, I donno.....What do you think: shoes or no shoes?