Wolf Final

Among the things I did today to tidy up before starting some thing new...was to FINISH this guy. True there wasn't much left to do. The border was stitched in a wood grain pattern and it was bound with the same grey flannel (yes pants from the thrift store.)
Grey is softer than black!

Wolf - Day 7

I spent some time this afternoon on this guy.
All that was really left to do was to finalized the dark feathered fur along the edges.
This would fully attach it to the backing at the same time. In retrospect I should have finished all but the very edge as I broke two needles finishing the black.

As a precaution I didn't do all the stitching I had intended but gave it a once over with, first a black pastel crayon and then a white, just to brighten a few spots.

Finishing the matting will take a few hours, but not today.

Wolf - Day 6

Before I stitch the remaining colour, Black, I decided to mount the piece.

Had I thought the whole thing thru a little more I would have realized if I added a bit extra on the "cut " side, the straight side, I would have had material to wrap. I had originally though about a simple

pillow case finish. I resolved that issue by adding a dark grey binding.

Nice but not great.

So I pinned the wolf onto the remaining, un-stitched blue.

Better but not right yet.

I wanted something that put it back into the wild. I tried an number of woodsy pieces but the green colour clashed too much.

Great to have a varied stash because I found the right one.

The colours work with the wolf.
Now the decision is do I leave it with this "hole in the wall" look, or cut and mitre the background to look more like a window?

Wolf - Day 5

Almost there!

Ready to be stitched to the background. That is when the final pass in black will be made.

This gives you some idea of the amount of stitching already applied!

Wolf - Day 3 - Starting with small

Before I did anything with this I decided to add one more piece of fabric to lighten the nose area. It was too dark in the original assembly.

Next I covered it with netting and stitched over the whole piece with mono filament, just to anchor all the pieces.
Why? Since I plan to use a hoop I didn't want the distortion from the hoop to shift pieces that haven't been stitched yet.

Of the three possible hoops, I chose the largest to fully encompass my starting location, the ear.
This spot needs to be filled. It has an inside that is a very different colour and texture than the edges.

All these colours are in the ear. The plan is to work outwards starting with the darkest.

The first few passes anchor and stabilize.

Working with in that area there is minimal distortion, just up at the tip where the path of the thread curls.

There is a lot of feathering to be added but I'm not planning on doing that to this spot until its on the background.'