Patting myself on the back

There have been a couple of things that I felt have gone quite well this past week while I was on vacation, so I have given myself a little pat on the back. I know, bragging, etc. is not really the correct thing to do, but as there is no one else to do this for me, I am just going to have to do it myself. Well, that is my story and I am sticking to it.

First of all about my little dog, Rene. The last 2 Sundays we have participated in 2 agility competitions. On the 14th May, it was a rather disastrous day, we were eliminated 3 times and got numerous faults on the 4th course. We had fun, but certainly had some practice to do. So during the week, we managed to get in some additional training, to try & rectify some of the problems that occured.
Sunday 21st May, we went to another competition, we were only eliminated in 2 of the courses, so a slight improvement there, however, in the other 2 courses we succeeded in getting a first place in both, so I was just delighted. It seems it is all or nothing with Rene, but we have a good time no matter what happens.

No real progress on the stitching front, but I did manage to get some framing completed. First off, the “Breeds of Sheep” that I finished last month is now framed. Tried something new, by cutting the top mat in 2 places to indicate gaps in the hedges and using a cream paper underneath that hopefully resembles fencing, perhaps it is not very clear but that was the idea. Once I had cut & papered the mats, I then went to buy the glass & frame. I must have spent a good 20 minutes trying to choose the right frame for this one. I really liked the green one, but putting it right next to the paper, it seemed to get lost; the paler ones didn’t seemed to work either, eventually I put a very thin cream frame inside the green one, making a double frame which seems to work quite well.

Next is the latest technique we learnt in our framing class, measuring out and cutting an oval. This was a right pain, it took me 3 attempts to get it right. I am glad I persevered as I quite like the results, but I somewhat doubt I will be doing many of this style.

Then comes “the bear & the moon” using a technique that I have also recently learnt, but the first time around we only learnt how to do this with square pictures, as our teacher only had instructions for this. Now I really wanted to see if/how it would work with a rectangular picture, I did take a while to figure out the calculations, but it turned out quite well in the end & as I like this technique I will definitely use it again in the future – if I can remember what I did in the first place.