A transformed pillow!

For those of you not on Facebook, where I already shared this project, I would like you to meet a new kitty!

I machine washed one of my DIL'S couch pillows, and somehow the corner of it jumped up, and got caught in between the basket of the washer, and down into the side edge. Well, when it went into spin cycle, it was making the most awful sound.
I ran out there, I stopped the machine, and as soon as it came to a stop, the pillow just dropped. The corner had been chewed right off!

I sat it out to dry naturally since now the stuffing was falling out. After a day or so, I decided rather that trying to square back up the darn thing, I would try and make a something different out of it.

I cut across the top, curving around both edges, then I found a picture of a cat face online, and tried pencilling it on freehand. Well, the pencil did not write well at all on this microfiber, so between that and me trying to draw anything symmetrical, he came out sork of wonky!

I decided that he looked kinda cute, and it gave him personality.  I hand embroidered in black everything but the whiskers. Then I used the sewing machine with regular black thread to make the whiskers finer. I made one of his whiskers come up and over the other 3, on his left side, trying to add more personality.

The ears are made from an old tee- shirt, and I added stabilizer to both sides of each ear, for stiffness, and very lightly padded each ear too.
I don't know why (and this is such an interesting, and strange thing about inspiration), but the tee-shirt is what made me come up with the idea to use it for ears!

My DIL loves black and red. Any she and the grandkids love cats and hamsters. I knew it had to be a cat. I shudder to think of how the pillow would have turned out if I had tried to make a mouse-like creature. LOL.

Anyway.....here he is (and I think HE is an old alley cat)!  My DIL thinks his name should be Fernando. What do you think? The cat looks devilish to me. Will Fernando be devilish enough????? Lol.

XOXO....Julie