April A to Z Challenge Theme Reveal

It is theme reveal time! Excitement abounds! For those that don't know what the challenge is, every day of April (excluding Sundays) represents a letter of the alphabet. You create a blog post based on your chosen theme (or lack thereof) corresponding to that letter and post it on its specified day. In your spare time (yeah, right!), you look at all the other participants' posts as well. Looks easy enough, but looks are definitely deceiving, after all, it's not called a Challenge for nothing!  I do believe the signup sheet is still active though and you can sign yourself up HERE.

I had more trouble choosing a theme this year than in previous years...one can only do so many Disney themes before the ideas dry up (even if my Disney cup, in general, runneth over). Last year I branched out with a Disney Alphabet Cross Stitch and I enjoyed it more than any other year despite the challenges (I do spend most of my waking, non-working life stitching, so it wasn't THAT much of a challenge, but sticking to a schedule isn't that easy for an Asper, even under the best of conditions).  This year, I was having difficulty finding a Disney Alphabet cross stitch that was a: different enough and b: could still please me...the un-pleasurable creature.  For months I had been scouring Etsy and EBay looking for custom charts...nada, zip, zilch. It got so bad, I even debated breaking down and just creating a chart myself, but we Asper's also aren't known for our completion ability either, so not a good idea. I've been told patience is a virtue so eventually the perfect project did appear (although I don't believe it for a second and, if it is, I wasn't standing in that particular line when the powers that be were dishing patience out, I got into the impatient line by mistake).

Those that follow me know that I've been on a bit of a Veronica Mars kick for a while (kick is a bit of a misnomer, more like obsession) and when I discovered Fangirl Stitches, I was literally jumping up and down with excitement because I had found "the one"! So, project #1 is:

VERONICA MARS ALPHABET CROSS STITCH

Did you notice the #1 there? Thought I made a mistake?  Nope, not a typo.  As in every aspect of my life, the lack of Disney-dom was eating away at me. I tried going "Disney cold turkey" on a Challenge before and ended up doing two at the same time because I was having Disney-withdrawal symptoms (all my previous Challenge posts can be viewed HERE). After some rather exhausting and very unfruitful begging sessions to designers, I turned, once again, to Roslyn at Fangirl and asked for a special chart that combines Disney and, continuing on with the TV theme, my favorite current TV show (which, as it happens, is easy because there is one such show).  Luckily, she was already working on exactly what I was thinking about...great minds and such. She really is one of the nicest designers I have ever worked with and she (very quickly) pumped out the perfect chart! Yes, that's right folks, project #2 is:

ONCE UPON A TIME ALPHABET CROSS STITCH

Obviously, for surprise purposes, I can't show you either piece in its entirety (although, those who might care, can look for them at Fangirl's Store on Etsy, and those that don't, go to her store anyway, she has lots of other charts as well). If you do look at either piece, you'll see that I might just be WAY over my head this year...but one must always raise the bar (or so I've been told, I kind of like my bar set very very low and easily bypass-able).  The V Mars is easy, so no worries there. But the Once chart is much more character-involved that what I did last year and most letters have two figures (because, for those that don't watch Once Upon A Time, each character has an alter-ego...their Fairytale character and their "real life" character and both needed representation).

In the interest of my sanity, I'm actually going to start the Once chart a bit early so that I can stay caught up with things, but I will reveal the letter on each specified day. The V Mars chart will be stitched on it's appropriate day (appeasing my OCD freaking-out-that-I-might-get-behind self and my Asper everything-must-be-done-on-its-assigned-day self). Only time will tell if I can keep up with the insanity or not, but, considering I live in Insanity Town anyway, I'm not anticipating any major problems.

As a side note, despite the mods pleads for more users to sign up, I'm kind of glad I don't have to rush through looking at thousands of blogs this year...that usually takes up more time than doing hours of stitching, taking pictures, posting the pics and writing a blog piece. Granted, I judge quickly and, if a post doesn't grab me in the first couple seconds, the fat lady is singin' anyway, but it would be nice to browse a bit...browse, good word - browse, BROWSE (sorry, having a Miranda moment...now THERE would be an interesting cross stitch chart, hint hint to all designers!). Good luck to everyone and I can't wait to start browsing!