Angel progress: garland, claws and tail

Like the angel and the lamb, the lion, too, now has a garland of flowers.  The leaves were worked in satin stitch with two shades of green Impressions, while the flowers were stitched in French knots with Vineyard Silk Classic Bright White, Peppermint and Berry.

When I stitched the brown background at the bottom of the canvas, I covered the bottoms of the claws.  I've reinserted them, using a stem stitch and DMC floss #310.

I find "free-form" stitching the hardest to do--following the pattern for a stitch is easy, but randomly stabbing the canvas to create a desired effect is another story.  Using two strands of a Burmilana that closely matches the main color of the lion's body, I worked random long stitches with the canvas turned 90 degrees.  When I was satisfied with the flow of stitches, I added shading with one strand each of two darker browns in long stitches on top of the base.  I'm hoping that this "practice run" in stitching the tail will make working the mane a little easier.