Eye Candy, Whoo Hoo!!

     I have eye candy today, yay.  I took a piccy of everything, cause I can't remember the last time I took piccys.  I've been very busy frogging Rosa.  I spent hours frogging and redoing and frogging and redoing...  The magazine made some changes to Vicki's pattern, so I kept trying to get it right and failing.  Finally, I figured out they had changed the pattern and notified Vicki.  She sent me her version (which is the correct one), and suddenly, my borders are matching up in the right place.  I was up all night, and I finally got to bed around one PM today.  I have something on my mind, and have had for several days.  It all started Thursday night, but I was dog sitting over the weekend, and I had somewhat of a handle on it.  Today though, I just couldn't get it under control.  So we'll see what happens with it all.  But I got a lot done on Rosa.  I had to frog the outer blue border, the middle blue border, the outer star stitch border, and the inner blue border.  It was a pain, but there was a MAJOR happy dance when they started meeting up and being in the right places.  I even jumped up and down.  Ouch!!!  So no more jumping up and down, lol.  But I'm really pleased with the amount of progress I got done.  I wanted (and it's possible, but not likely) to finish up the trellis for this rotation and start on the other Rosa (I'm doing two, a practice one for me and a real one for Rosa).  I've got the trellis lines in place, now I need to couch it, which is gonna be a pain.  Every intersection gets a couching stitch!!!!  So it's gonna take forever.  And I only have Friday and Saturday to work on it, so we'll see how I do.  (If only I hadn't had to frog so much of it!!!  But thems the breaks, sometimes.)  She's looking pretty, and I'm happy I figured out how I got so far off.  

     Next up is my ornie (this is the one piccy I think may be the same as last time). 

 I put in a few rows last week, but can't remember when I did my last update piccy.  I'm really liking how the dark evergreen is coming out.  It looks just like an actual evergreen, and so I'm happy with the color I picked to do the trees in.  It's perfect!!  I like the opalescent fabby too.  I got an email from Lauren of Sassy's Fabbys the other day, about my other opalescents.  She just now got the fabby from her distributor.  It was promised in October!!!  So I answered her and said that's cool, just to let me know how much she owes me.  I told her I had sent her an email too, and if she got it, to just ignore it.  I know her mom (I think) has been having some health problems, so I don't mind that she isn't caught up.  I told her in October whenever she got the fabby was good, and I stand by that.  This opalescent (which came from Anne D., thanks Anne) was sort of a trial run to see if I liked using it.  Since I liked it, I'm doing my Celtic Ladies on opalescent.  The fabby I got for the wedding sampler is opalescent too.  I can't wait to get it.

     Okay, up next is my Portrait of Christ (previously called Jesus).  

He's getting there.  I got most of the rest of his hair done at David's house this week end.  (More on that later.)  I'm starting to get excited for the finish.  I have the one overs to do and some bits and bobs here and there.  I have a few bits of his cloak, and a little bit of hair on the right side of his neck.  Then there are some little bits here and there in his face (especially along the hairline), and he's done.  Finito, whoo hoo!!!  And honestly, I can't wait to be done with him.  This project has caused me so many problems with the almost constant frogging.  I just couldn't seem to get his face right, no matter what I did.  I just kept putting things in the wrong place!!!  But he's getting close to being finished, and so I'm happy about that.  I'm sure mom will be too, lol.  She's been waiting years for him.  So a slightly premature happy dance here.  Oh, and I have to do a little bit of bsing, too.  I almost forgot to mention that.  It's around his eyes and nose.

     My last WIP is Tree of Stitches. 

 It's been so fun to do this project.  And when Vicki and I were talking this morning, I was able to mention several specialty stitches that she could use in her project that she's designing.  (I mentioned the Cushion stitch first.  It's my fave.  I just love the way it looks.)  So that was nice, to be able to put in some useful suggestions.  I'm loving the color I chose for this too.  The dark and light greens are so pretty.  It's turning out beautifully.  Norwich Stitch is the current stitch, and while I don't love it, I can tolerate it.  (It's the first stitch that I haven't really enjoyed, although the eyelets got tedious as I was stressing while doing them.  (I was in the hospital with mom that night.)  But I don't hate them either, like I do French Knots.  I actually just totally skipped the French Knots, cause I totally hate them.  And my tree looks good without them, lol.  BTW, yes, I am going to be filling in that part to the left of the current, um, branch (for lack of a better word).  I'm working from right to left, cause God forbid I should work left to right like most people do, lol.  I had to move the Q snap last week as it was too low for me to reach the top of the tree.  I still have a couple of floral stitches to do down at the bottom, but I haven't got a color picked out for them yet.  I'm thinking maybe the pink I used for Julie, but IDK for sure...

     And the last piccy I have to share (because I can't move piccys from my phone to my computer), is of Cattitude.  Yes, I picked it up from the framers this week, on Thursday.  It was a long day too.  I dogsat for David (and catsat for Amy) this weekend.  They went on a little "vacation" to Florida.  They actually got married there, on the beach.  I hadn't realized that Beach Romance was so apt.  I've got a great piccy of them standing together about ankle deep in the surf, kissing.  It looks fabulous!!  If I could post it here, I would.  But it's on my phone, and I can't transfer it.  Anyways, I left here Thursday afternoon at about four o'clock.  I needed to stop at Michael's for my skein of thread, because it's on the way to David's and Amy's house, and it's cheaper than Hobby Lobby, which is super close to my house.  (David's only about fifteen minutes away, so Michael's isn't but ten minutes.  It's not really out of the way.)  So I go in, pull out PoC, and figure out which floss I'm missing.  I hunt up the floss section, find the bin, and the darned thing is empty.  Go figure.  So back to Hobby Lobby I go.  Since David gives me some money for watching his dog, I also picked up my Cattitude.  Then I head for David's house again, only to get most of the way there and realize, "I forgot my meds," so back home I went.  It was funny, in a way, except that I was wasting gas!!  Over to Michael's, back to Hobby Lobby, over to three blocks from David's back home, back to David's.  Third time's a charm, right!!  Of course, Vin was very happy to see me.  He wiggle butted all over the kitchen, lol.  I took him down and hooked him up.  He went out and did his business.  then I went in to see the cats.  (I had only seen them once before.)  Butters, who is a chunk of cat, was amenable to me being there and gave me rubs and let me pet her and rub her belly.  Reese hates me, and everyone else.  She hissed and spat and bit me.  (I tried to pet her to see if the hissing was all talk.  Nope, she was serious, lol.)  She didn't bite hard, just a warning.  She was growling and mom (on the phone) said she sounded vicious.  Which she did, lol.  So every time I went to see the cats, I let Vin peek in the door.  And a few times, Butters came up to the cat door to sniff at Vin on the other side.  They're still nervous of each other, but I spent some time getting them acclimated.  Butters stood about two feet away and looked her fill, while Vin looked calmly at her.  So I had some success getting them used to each other.  I would just hold Vin across the chest so he knew not to lunge at the cat, and they'd stare at each other.  So I'm hopeful for better things next time we try and get them together.  I did tell David that I'm not dogsitting for him anymore.  I was talking to Amy, and he was in the background.  He asked how the weather was, and I told them frigid.  He laughed in the background.  I told Amy to tell him I would be happy to catsit for her, but next time he wanted to go off to Florida in the middle of winter, he was on his own, lol.  They're very brave.  They got married on Friday the Thirteenth, which I thought was very cool.  (It's one of my fave days of the year, partly because my paternal grandpa loved Friday the Thirteenth.)

     Now that you've read all of that, here is the piccy you've been waiting with bated breath for. 

 I think it turned out fabulous, and for now, I plan to hang it over my purple couch.  (When I finish my desert mandala, it will take up that space, but for now, it's all about the Cattitude.)  I love the mat for this.  It's a textured mat, and you can sort of see the movement of the nap in the photo.  It's like a short, short fur.  It was very soft when I touched it in the store.  This was the cheaper of the two projects I had framed, so it came home first.  I still have Cat Lessons for People that Randi made me there, but it was close to a hundred dollars for that to be framed as it's much larger.  So that one is waiting for me to save up a little bit of money for it.

      I have committed to doing a cross stitch piece for Rosa too.  I've picked out a pattern and fabby, but I'm not sure if she wants me to post it here or not.  And I think I posted here that I've also committed to doing two pieces for Freak.  He offered to pay for the second one's supplies and everything, so I said I would do both.  It's because he likes to read my freaking blog, lol.  He saw the piccys that I showed of my purchases from Witch Stitch'n'Bits, and he loved Enchanted  Web, which I bought for Julie.  He wants me to do one for him, so I'll have to buy the chart again.  God love him, he has no idea how much work goes into a big piece.  His little cross stitch is something like four by four.  I told him it would take years, and he asked if I would mind doing them both, and if I did, not to worry about it.  But I love him to death, so I told him I'd do them both.  In one of my groups, Buckeye stitchers, I think, we're doing a start something new on April Fool's Day challenge.  So I signed up for both Beach Romance and Enchanted Web.  If I remember right, it falls on a Sunday, so I'll probably do a few stitches (twenty maybe) on EW and then work on BR the rest of the day.  BR is taking Jesus's place in my SAL schedule.  And EW is taking the place of ToS.  I'm sure both will be finished before April first.  (And if not, I'll start the new ones anyways, and put them away for a couple of weeks if need be.  I doubt it will be necessary though.)  

     I know this is long, but I want to ask all of your for prayers.  I've asked Randi to do something for me, and I'm hoping she'll do it.  I don't want to go into details yet, but I may later if I have to bring some pressure to bear.  So if you'll all say a prayer that this can be settled without further unpleasantness, I'd appreciate it.  TIA, as I know my wonderful followers will help me out with this!!  I hope you're all having a wonderful night, and that the new year is treating you right!