The Cat Topiary Garden Reappears

dede Odgen's Cat Topiary Garden

I'm sure at least some of you noticed that the cat topiary garden piece I was stitching for my mother's birthday has reappeared. I ran out of time to get it done and made up so I worked on the pink geisha Miko instead. Cat topiary garden will now be a Christmas present, which means I'm working it each night, trying to get more finished on this fairly large piece (eleven inches wide by thirteen inches high on 18 count NP canvas).

In the header photo the cat is almost finished but the dark gray shading is just too dark.  I pulled all that out and replaced it with a lighter gray thread.  Sometimes what looks good at night when I do most of my stitching doesn't look good the next morning, which was the case here.

The cat is done in needle painting, which is basically a random long and short stitch with outlines in stem and outline stitch.  The eyelids are tent stitches.  I used two shades of orange Impressions, a cream from Vineyard Silk Classic, and gray Medici wool.  Basically, I found similar diameter threads in the right colors from my stash and stitched away!

I plan to go back to the topiaries but I needed a break from them.  There are a lot of topiaries in the background and stitching them is tedious work, so I hope to alternate finishing them with other parts of the canvas.  Stay tuned!

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com