Canvas of the Month - Bonnie's Buddha Cat

This month's canvas of the month is a Brenda Stofft design called Buddha Cat. This is a 6x10 inch design on 18 count canvas.
http://www.brendastofftdesigns.com/Cats%20and%20Dogs.htm

Bonnie's Buddha Cat Ideas:

This month with the cat canvas, I would start with the cat. I think its time to so some turkey tufting with a strandable wool/wool blend fiber following the shading on the canvas. The center of the ears would be a tent stitch in a cotton floss to make it distinct from the fur. The paw pads would be a padded satin stitch in floss to raise them up a bit to match the fur. The eyes would be silk, done in tent stitches and with a stem stitch outline – maybe add a little metallic for the sparkle in the middle of the eye. The nose is a padded satin in silk and the mouth a stem stitch in the floss.
Next I would move to the robe. All of the shaded folds make it tough to come up with a stitch that would work. Ideally a stitch that would make a wave pattern would be perfect, but it is such small areas. I started thinking maybe just lay horizontal satin stitches in a strandable silk breaking the stitches at the dark lines and the breaks would create the folds, but the idea of a horizontal stitch on a robe that lays vertically seems off to me. So I would maybe try some vertical satin stitches over three or so instead, maybe in groups of two staggered so that you end up with a diagonal feel, but not too strong of one. So I would do two over 3 vertical satin stitches, then drop down one hole and do another pair and then drop down one hole, and so on. I would make sure I compensate at the dark lines so the idea of a fold stays. Each side would form a diagonal down towards the center so would mirror each other. The middle which isn't angled could just be down in staggered pairs of just a row of satin stitches depending on how tall it really is. After the robe is all stitched, if the folds aren't prominent enough, I would go back in and stem stitch them in a slightly darker color or maybe even the same color with maybe just one strand so there, but not bold. There are a couple of dark areas that appear to be the lining of the robe. Those I would simply tent stitch in silk. That leaves just the bracelets and the belt buckle on the cat which I would simply bead.

The pillow is next. I envision the part the cat is sitting on in a rich velvet, so I would do satin stitches in very velvet making sure it lays smoothly. Then I would take silk and lay it in long straight stitches toward the middle of each petal for the pale green parts – this would mean changing the direction of the stitches as you go to match the direction of the petals. So it would be vertical at the top and bottom, horizontal on the sides and angled to fill the spaces in the middle. I might even pad under the stitches to give the petals a more raised look on the edges. The middle of the top petals would be a version of the sheltered diamonds pattern from Brenda Hart’s Favorite Stitches 2 – you'd have to compensate to make it fit, but the middle would be a metallic and the edges a silk. The smaller leaves at the bottom would just be the silk part of the stitch without the middles. Lastly I would take a metallic braid or cord and couch it all around the petals and leaves to get that nice smooth rounded look.
Now what is that behind the cat? A sun or what? For lack of a better guess on my part, I am going to go with the sun. So I would find a nice fiber with some shine – maybe a metallic, or maybe something like Flair which would just catch the light or maybe something like Neon Rays since it has a nice sheen to it. I think to get more of the light play, I would go with something like vertical and horizontal pavilions which is essentially one row of vertical diamond patterns followed by one row of horizontal diamonds. Now if you tell me that is something else, I may change my mind entirely!
The letter to the right I would tent stitch in silk or they might be fun to couch some really thick metallic for them depending on their actual size. And that leaves the background. Since it is black and stitching on black is tough, I may be just tempted to leave it unstitched. If I was going to stitch it, I would pick a #12 perle cotton for some texture, but no shine. Something like the crazy rain stitch or even the gobelin wave II stitch from Brenda Hart’s Favorite Stitches 2 book would be fun. Neither fills up all of the canvas holes but with the perle cotton would provide some texture to the background.


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