Do you Know Dali?

A mere 4 or 5 days before Christmas my SIL emailed me and asked if I had some fabric that was about 15" square and sort of 'this' colour (a blotchy image of something sort of light blue was attached).  She apparently needed it for a top secret crafty project. I told her to stop by on her way home from work because I had lots of options in my stash.

I had an inkling she might be working on something for our family, but had no idea she was embarking on a major stitchery project (FOUR days before Christmas) for me!  After searching for sewing machine images online, she came across this oil painting by Salvatore Dali.

This is a public image on flickr
edited to add: if you'd like to know more about this painting, check out this blog that explains Dali created it for a creepy dream sequence in a Hollywood movie (that was later cut). Thanks Nicolette for telling me about that!

I've never seen this image before! It is so unbelievably cool.  And those spooky women all lined up in the archways in their skivvies, seemingly worshiping the sewing machine, or perhaps beseeching it to whip up some clothing because they are freezing their scrawny asses off?!  Did the machine just parachute out of the sky, suspended by the umbrellas? Who knows what Salvatore Dali was thinking....any art majors out there care to comment?  I'm just so surprised that in 4 years of online sewing community participation, I've never come across this image anywhere!  But my SIL is like that. She finds cool stuff.

Imagine my jaw dropping when I opened this up on Christmas morning.

Apparently two very late nights, one long day at work (shhhhhh, don't tell the boss), a trip or two to Michael's for floss and some online stitch reviews were required to pull this off. If I've left anything out, I'm sure she'll set me straight in the comments, so check below!

I absolutely love that she thought of doing this and actually pulled it off as a most amazing gift for me.  It has been years since she did any stitching and I think she rather enjoyed making it. I finished the back of the hoop today and it is now proudly hanging in my sewing room. It's definitely one of the funkiest, most apropos stitched hoops I've ever seen and I can't believe it's mine.  

Thank you very much Fern. You're the best (but you already know that).