Jellicle Cats by Carol Sylvester

"Jellicle Cats" is my first attempt at making significant changes to someone else’s creation. I first saw this piece designed as a Dimensions kit for counted cross stitch, with cotton floss and black Aida. But my mind started spinning with ideas as soon as I saw the picture –bullion flowers! Fuzzy stripes! I couldn’t wait to get started.

The designer of the artwork on which the kit was based, Laurel Burch, uses bright colors throughout her artwork, and I wanted to maintain her choices—I matched my color choices as best I could to the colors included in the kit. But, I made several changes in the threads and stitches. I chose mostly rayon flosses and perle cottons, with a little bit of wool and metallic, and I’ve used a wide variety of three-dimensional stitches to make the cats stand out more. The only places you’ll find floss now are in the cats’ eyes and the borders, and there is not a single cross stitch in the entire piece.

Stitching this piece really stretched my skills. Some of the initial decisions didn’t work—I ripped out the stripes in the yellow cat three times before I was satisfied with the result. And the whiskers I had been saving as they were shed from my real life cat made the piece look too busy. But when I added the "long hair" to that third cat, the whole piece came to life, and I knew I was going to be pleased with the results.