Can this angel be saved?

I began work on Emily, the tree-topper angel, as I usually do with "people" canvases: I stitched the face first, so I'd have something pretty looking back at me as I worked on the rest of the canvas. The skin tones of the face and arm were stitched in backetweave with four plies of DMC floss #3770 and #950 and DMC floss #761 for the cheeks. Brown and pink floss in cross stitches provided the eyes and mouth.

The wings were worked in a Nobuko stitch with Kreinik #12 tapestry braid #032. I then eyeballed the wings for the backside of the angel and stopped dead in my tracks: no way were they the mirror image of the wings I'd just stitched. To confirm my suspicion, I placed a piece of tracing paper over the stitched wings and outlined the area in pencil, then turned the onion skin over and placed it on top of the wings on the backside. The tracing didn't line up.

I like to stay on my finisher's good side, so I knew that I'd have to make a decision: either scrap the idea of a tree-topper, stitching just the front of the angel "as is" and eventually backing it in velveteen as an ornament, or redrawing the wings on the backside so front and back would ultimately line up. Another thought occurred to me: if the wings were out of whack, there was a good possibility that the rest of the body was, too.

I thought of getting another design to work as the tree-topper, and cruised various shop websites for possibilities. I found a couple--none that I actually fell in love with--and I definitely didn't love the prices!

So I'll go back to poor Emily with my tracing paper and determine just how much work is involved in adjusting her outline front-to-back. There may be a good reason why this canvas doesn't have a signature!