Lishi - Hand embroidered Shiba Inu portrait

Here is a project that I completed in late December. It was a gift for a family member of his dog, Lishi! After creating my pattern in Procreate with my iPad I printed it onto my fabric as seen in my tutorial here.

For fabric I chose to use Kona cotton in the color Shale. I thought the slight grey/blue would compliment Lishi's bright orange fur.

I embroidered her portrait using a single strand of DMC and Anchor embroidery thread. I used a size 10 John James sharps needle.

I started with the cherry blossom branch above her head. I wanted to get most of the background elements out of the way before focusing on the rest of her portrait. I am stitching in an 8" embroidery hoop even though she'll be framed in a 7" hoop. This allows me to stitch all of the way to the edge of the frame.

I also filled in her eyes, nose, and some of her fur.

Next, I moved on to her ears. They seemed a little complicated so I wanted to focus on them and get them mostly finished. I tend to jump around a lot with my portraits so after the ears, I moved to work on her chest and neck fur.

After working a bit on her neck I moved to her snout. The tongue was especially fun!

I then began filling in the center of her face and working to capture her bone structure.

I kept working hard on her face and moved downward to meet the neck. The fur was very complicated here, especially since I had combined two reference photos and the fur in each photo was going in a different direction.

Finally, I finished filling in the hair at the base of her ears, her gums, and the rest of the cherry blossoms. I also added some whiskers! Finally, after many hours she was complete. You can see that after I moved her to her 7" frame the embroidery goes all of the way to the edge.

I framed her in a custom frame from ACMS Needlework shop. I think this frame sets her portrait off beautifully and really accents the portrait.

If you're interested in creating an embroidered portrait of your pet you can learn how in my upcoming course on Domestika (launch date TBA) or with my book, Pet Portrait Embroidery. Hope you enjoyed seeing my process!