This is the Day

Over two years ago I signed up for the Cabinet of Curiosities.  I was hoping that one day I would get to make a cabinet covered with stitching.

 It has been a great class.  It helped me to learn about all the different kinds of caskets, all the different techniques.  I practiced by making a trinket box (not yet finished),

a pincushion

and a scissors holder in the shape of the glove.  My ideas have evolved over the length of the class.  I have seen many designs.  I know what I like and what I don't like (misshapen people and waste canvas on satin)  I know what technique I feel most comfortable with (cross stitch).  I am willing to try some embroidery too.
I was hoping to have the opportunity to get a casket.

Today is the day my flat top casket arrives.  I am very excited.  I made sure to notice when the UPS man drove by this week.  It was between 3:30 and 4 p.m.  Some people in the class have already started their stitching.  But I haven't.  I am getting a kit for Christmas (Jenny Adin-Christie's Hampton Court)

that is a possible casket top design and I have a Sharon Cohen chart called Mermaid Tapestry that could be a top to a casket depending on what size it turns out to be.
I would like to try some more modern techniques to secure the stitching on the casket.  For me, it doesn't have to be done like the seventeenth century caskets.  I want it to look wonderfully neat not bumpy or frayed.
So today is the culmination of the dream of being able to stitch my own casket.
Lucky me!
A