Finally, finally, the carving is finished

All my readers have probably forgotten that I have a small cabinet in the works. But it is still underway. Today I finally finished the carving. And it didn't turn out too badly if I may say so.

A picture to prove that I actually do the carving myself and didn't buy a ready made panel from ebay.

As you can see I have the panel wedged between two dogs. This arrangement doesn't work too well, but I didn't want to nail it to my workbench. That was a method often used in the past and many carved panels have the nail holes in the corners to prove it.

Today I did the flower in the middle. The curves of the lobes are defined with gouges, the straight lines are made with a v-tool. Then the background is removed with shallow gouges, mostly #4's in my case. Mine have an edge with a nail profile which is very usefull for this kind of work because the corners can't damage the outlines.

Here with the background stippled with a punch. The rails and styles of the door still need a fair amount of work. I want to decorate them too and I must make a mortise for the lock.