Crochet and Cat Repair

A friend recently moved and I finally made it over to see her new place.  While we sat and talked she started telling stories about her 6-toed cat.  He's a young thing, maybe five months old.  Because of his extra toes (6 on all 4 paws) he can do fun things like walk the rim of a cardboard box.  But, he's also gotten into some trouble.  He attacked the crocheted window hanging.  It came down with a crash in the middle of the night.  Apparently he attacked the crochet work, as well as brought it down from the window.

This piece was crocheted by my friend's mother and it has hung in her window for nearly 10 years.  I wasn't sure how well it would take to repairs, but I managed to reconnect most of the clawed crochet and reconnect it to it's wire rim.  The hardest part was choosing a green to replace the leaf.  

The photo shows the original.  It was really a brown/olive color.  The more I looked at it though, the more I realized that it was severely faded.  The broken threads showed a much brighter green that the surface of the piece.  I opted for a crochet thread that was similar to the inner color of the old thread.  It's acrylic, not cotton...a fact that I didn't realized until after I made the replacement leaf.  But, I like the color and it works well in the finished crocheted piece.