It's a Dog's Life

Well, it took me long enough to realize that I really needed to stitch a dog collage. Duh. And what better dog to stitch than a black lab. (Yeah, I know and agree that each and every type of dog is great, unique and loveable, but I had to start SOMEWHERE - grin.)

Here's my new LABRADOR COLLAGE:


When I thought about labradors and all the things they love, I realized I had to create some tennis balls and sticks in one of the collage boxes. Here's the geometric version I came up with:


And what lab doesn't enjoy a good chew stick and rawhide bone?


The red band in the top portion of the design is similar to a collar I had for my own black lab-mix, Libby. (You may prefer to change your accent color to royal blue, if your dog wears that color instead.)

And I originally planned to make a plaid box, in the red/blue/green/gold color combo.But a stitching friend of mine who looked at the piece in progress said,"Wait! You HAVE to have pawprints! It's not a doggie thing without pawprints." And she was right. I totally overlooked the obvious choice of pawprints. So I added the pawprints and simplified the underlying plaid (and even managed to slip in some beads.)


Black animals are the hardest to portray. All that BLACK, don't you know.... And I decided to create a rather generic labrador (a compromise between the stockier English types and the leggier American types) so if you have a taller lab, a more delicate lab, or a labrador-cross perhaps, you might want to make a few minor revisions. In any event, here's my version:


And to be fair to all labrador lovers everywhere, I decided to make separate graphs for black, yellow and chocolate labradors. And they all look equally fetching in a red/blue/green colorway, don't you agree?

So if you're a labrador fan, check out this new LABRADOR COLLAGE pattern on my website. Or as a dog trainer might say: "GO FETCH!!"....or better yet: "SIT! STITCH!!"