Callie 🐾🐾

This beautiful girl was a 4-pawed member of the Windham Fabrics family:

Oh, my, a calico 😳…Mother Nature’s 🧩kitty ;)! First step, create the pattern with the use of the Procreate app:

Love this app! One “layer” can be the outline for tracing pieces of fabric, while another allows me to work out how many fabric colors I’ll need. Finding just the right shades was the next step:

Perfect…Cherrywood fabric for her fur, a scrap of green silk for her amazing eyes…and, a hand-dyed green background S complement.

Next decision…which base fabric? Then, reverse appliqué for her eyes…

An invaluable tool in my process is my Goddess Sheet from MistyFuse http://www.mistyfuse.com/. Not only for fusing, but for building my subjects before fusing them to their backgrounds (em, instead of my pressing surface 😂). A small sheet is also incredibly handy to hold small pieces of fabric taut and in one place while tracing tiny shapes:

I use my paper pattern to help with perfect placement of elements:

Once all assembled and fused…ready for thread choices!

For this gal, a combination of colorful Aurifil and high-shine Superior threads 🧵💜. Now to the most fun part:

Getting there! I always stitch the eyes first…and leave the whiskers for the finishing touch. The variegated background needed a perfect thread combination:

Nearly done. Hmmm, while I used an off-white for the ears (not white), then gently applied some colored pencil, the ears are still too white to my eye. Enter my usual solution for shading problem areas:

Powdered eyeshadows and blush can come in handy! As can touches of a 4B pencil under her chin.