Good Works

It's been a good week for sure! I finished a lot of testing at work this week and felt good about my job for the first time in months. I was finally able to get a good photo of Ellie - she's not a big fan of the camera. There was a dog club meeting, an orientation for Ellie's therapy dog group, a speedskating race and some swimming. And on Friday there was another of the local stitching group meetings.

At the meeting, I was able to complete most of the work on a gift I've been trying to finish. The rest of the work has to wait a bit. But I'm feeling really good about that.

Tonight I'm working on the design for the name tag I need to create for the stitching retreat at the end of March. I fear waiting too much longer - something is bound to come up. The retreat theme is "A Garden Party" and so I need to work to that theme. The other constraints are that I use the 6"x7" 28ct Carnation Pink Cashel Linen and the following thread colors:

• DMC 307 - Yellow
• DMC 341 - Periwinkle
• DMC 917 - Magenta
• DMC 989 - Green
• DMC 3854 - Orange
• Sampler Threads Simply Shaker Walnut

I have a few ideas floating around my head, but really no direction to take. I'm thinking I'd like to work in some special stitches, like Algerian Eyelets or Rice stitches. I'm not quite sure. I feel like it needs a bunny for some reason.

In addition to the name tag, I'm working on putting together a pattern from a photo of my friend's whippet, Willie. I promised her a while back I would stitch a whippet for her, but just can't find a pattern I'd like to use. She has plenty of professional photos of Willie. I'm going to give this design software I have a shot. It's tough. Everything seems to turn out tinged green. I think I may have to match the thread colors by hand. So far I've doctored the image to get a good head shot in the right resolution and have imported it into the pattern making software. This might be a bit more intense than I anticipated.