Progress Update: Christmas Gifts and Crazy January Challenge Days 1-5 (Long and Picture Heavy)

I was finally able to remember to take pictures last night of what I've been doing, so it's time to post a few updates, mostly for the Crazy January challenge.

First off were the Mill Hill kits I was finishing up for Christmas presents for my aunt and her family.  I did manage to finish them a few days before Christmas, so that was good.  So Tropical Kitty, Provence Rooster, Hot Stuff, Be Merry, and Teton Santa have been moved to my 2014 finishes page. 

The bad news about that is that I completely forgot to take pictures of them before I gave them for Christmas.  Oops!  Luckily 3 of them were still on the tree when I went over to my aunt's for New Year's Eve, so I managed to grab a picture of those ones.

I already posted a finish picture for Tropical Kitty, but here it is hanging among the branches and lights:

And Teton Santa (so much beading, but turned out pretty good):

And Hot Stuff, pretty much the easiest project of the 5:

I am still trying to get pics for Be Merry and Provence Rooster, but for now you'll just have to use your imagination. 

So that updates me up until the end of the year.  Well, then starting January 1st, I started on my Crazy January Challenge, which is to start/work on 31 different projects, one for each day in January.  Unfortunately, my plans I originally posted about have already changed, since I've had a couple projects I thought I would get done after above ornaments and before the end of the year.  Needless to say they didn't get done as planned, so now I'm shuffling my Crazy projects a bit.  But that's okay, I'm just going to spill over into February a bit (haha).

So onto my daily updates, since the lack of internet access has put me behind on reporting a bit.

For January 1st, I spent the morning making a big breakfast for my cousin and my brother, and then we went to go see Into the Woods in theaters (which I highly recommend, by the way).  Then the afternoon was spent preparing for a date (yay!) so needless to say, I didn't get home until 10:00 and I didn't get much stitching done.  Since it was the start of the year, I decided to pull out my January start for the 2015 Flower of the Month SAL I'm hosting this year.  Since it was so late, I only got a bit done:

And by a bit I mean like 7 stitches.  But hey, I finished one color block, so there you go.  I plan on picking this one up again before the month is over.  

January 2nd was the first of the imposing projects I mentioned. I needed to finish my mitten squares I am stitching for World of Charity Stitching.  I started with Leopard Print Mitten, since that's the one I had started already.  This one was a WIP, so this is where I started:

And after several good hours of stitching, I was able to scrape out a finish:

My first finish of 2015!  It is VERY unusual for me to have something done so early, even if it's something small.  But oh well, it's a finish.  So happy dance anyway.  So Leopard Print Mitten has been moved to my brand new 2015 finishes page. 

January 3rd I spent most of the day trying to unpack boxes, and we also had a massive rainstorm/tornado watch that meant we spent several hours sheltering/trying to entertain our sister missionaries.  So my stitching plans kind of went out the window.  But I did manage to start Giraffe Print Mitten, which is the second of my mitten squares for World of Charity Stitching:

Doesn't look like much so far, but hopefully I'll get a good chance to work on it this week and finish it off. 

January 4th was Sunday, and my brother's family birthday party, so again a short stitching day.  Also, it was the season premiere of Galavant, which I enjoyed immensely, but didn't get much stitching on during it.  But I did get one ring done in my Rainbow Mandala square.  This is a freebie pattern that I'm changing the colors on, also a project for World of Charity Stitching (notice a theme going on)?

January 5th, yesterday, was a start on Frosted Pumpkin's 12 Days of Christmas pattern.  I'm doing a Frosted Pumpkin Round Robin through a group on Facebook, and this is my pattern I'm sending out.  I'm doing the border of the piece before it leaves, and each member of the group will complete a different square from the pattern until it eventually makes it way back to me.  So I got a good start on the border, which hopefully I can finish tonight really quick. 

Don't know what will be for tonight's stitch, other than there probably won't be a ton of progress made on it.  Mostly because I need to finish the above border and mitten (not to mention the Rainbow Mandala) soonish, so those will take precedence over anything new.  So my new start may look like the January Carnations one up there.  Only like 7 stitches.  But I am determined to start something at least!