April first challenge (piccy heavy)

     Okay, I managed to start all four of my pieces for the April first challenge, and I have piccys of them all.  Since it's late (I'm sorry, I know I promised piccys on Monday, and it's now technically Tuesday), I'm gonna jump right in.

     I'll start with the smallest start first. 

 I've decided to do ornies for the whole family this year.  I started mom's yesterday (It's still Monday to me since I haven't gone to bed yet.  Yes, I know I'm weird), and he is just too cute.  It's Let It Snow (Casey Buonaugorio Designs).  I didn't put a lot in him, but good enough so you can see the start of the shape of his hat.  It's a sort of curlicue off to the left, and then the snowman sits to the right.  I put about fifteen or twenty minutes in on him, and I love the shade of red this is.  It's very vibrant.  He's gonna be awesome.  And since I'm not working in hand, I'm sure he'll work up quickly.

     And next is the new Jesus.  I don't know what the problem is, but I'm having trouble with Beach Romance (Janlynn) already. 

 In some places (I don't know if it's because of it being opalescent or not), it seems that the strands of fabby have untwisted themselves.  Instead of looking like one strand of fabby, it looks like two.  And it makes it hard to count.  I've already had to frog twice:  once because I put in a stitch that was only one hole high, and again cause I put in a stitch that was three holes high.  I guess I over corrected it.  It wasn't too bad once I was looking for it though, so I'm hoping it won't be too bad.  I'm working on the waves at their feet.  Not that you can see it atm.  It's so close to the color of the fabby it sort of blends in.  The fabby looks brilliant though, if I do say so myself.  (No, I didn't dye it.  I got it from Silkweavers.  It's Summer Winds opalescent.)  You can really see the sparkle.

     Next is the lovely Time To Go (Witch Stitch'n'Bits), for my gamer friend Freak.  

It's a SAL with Vicky L (you can see her blog here) and even though I started it on Sunday, we're working on it on Tuesdays.  I think...  I can hardly remember what we talked about now.  Anyways, it was an EASY start.  I did the first hundred stitches of it, which took all of half an hour.  I'm doing it two over one in tent stitch, and the whole first ten by ten was black.  Very quick and easy.  So far, I love it, lol.  (Who can beat quick and easy???)  Plus it's for such a good friend, so that makes it fun too.  I'm a little bit worried that I may need to change the colors in the legs a little bit.  I see a sort of blue cast, and I don't think I like it.  I may change it to a more flesh toned look, but we'll see how it looks when I get there.

     And my last start, and the one I was most looking forward to 

(and that I now have to frog, more on that later) is Noah's Sub (Stoney Creek).  I got Rosa on the phone and we got ready and started it together since it's a SAL with her and Julie.  Julie's not quite ready to start hers yet as she still has special orders to do.  I think I need to frog now though.  I started the half stitches so that they go the same way as my bottom stitches, instead of matching my top stitches.  So it will look like my half stitches cross in a different direction than my whole stitches.  Luckily, I don't have much in it yet, so I can easily pull them out and change them.  Of course, Rosa pointed out to me (luckily, because I read it wrong) that not all of the sky is in half stitches.  When I read it, I thought it said the whole sky was half stitches.  Some of them are halves and some of them (apparently) are wholes.  Oh, yegads, another thing to keep track of.  Grrrrr...  So I have to go through and mark the ones in the sky that are half stitches.  I think I"ll just put 1/2 on the bags so I don't confuse the asterisk as their symbol or something like that.  I didn't spend a long time on it, just enough to get a few rows in.

     And last, but certainly not least, is my last update on Country Bloomers for this rotation. 

 I'm now rotating once a week, on Saturday I'll finish up my rotation piece and put it away, Sunday is Beach Romance, and then Monday will be my next rotation piece.  I didn't do too badly at two weeks, but sometimes I had to check my blog to remember if it was the first week or the second week that I'd had that piece out.  So I'm changing it a little bit this time through.  Now I'm hitting the hay.  I've been up for a long time, and I"m tired.  

     I've been enjoying (sort of) my balcony this week, but I've noticed that I'm really tired at the end of the day.  Fresh air and all that.  I need to get a different chair for it (the balcony, I mean).  I go out and sit in the cheap one I have and it's not big enough for my wide load, lol.  So my hips get sore.  I used to have a couple of nice Adirondack chairs from dad, but my brother took them.  (I think he was afraid I would get rid of them when I moved.  As if...)  So I need to go out and find a good deal on one.

     Also, Julie's birthday is on Saturday, and if I can remember to get an oil change first, I'm going up there to help her celebrate.  We'll have fun (we always do, even right after her dad died), and maybe get to go out to dinner.  Yay!  I'll try and talk her into it at Wendells, where she works.  I want to meet some of her coworkers.  She talks about them a lot, and she likes most of them, so we'll see what happens.  Hope you're all having a wonderful night.  TTYAL!!