Snake
I really like the way the snake's head is looking-it's really simple, but it looks darn good. Need to decide whether I want seed beads or the small round beads as eyes. Perhaps I should ask Steph's advice.

Also, the light in my room is better than the light in the TV room at home. Thus, I can work on this at night (black or not).

I need to figure out how the back pattern should work.

Let's see: if they're four beads wide, I need 18=7n+2(n-1)+B stitches (or 18=9n-2+B) stitches, where n is the maximal number of diamonds, and B is the number of stitches on the underbelly. Hmm...that means either n=1, which seems bad, or n=2 and the belly has only 2 sts. Not good.

But if they're three beads wide, I need 18=7n+B-2 stitches, so if n=2, then B=6, which is reasonable. Okay, I'm going with that, I guess. If it looks bad, I can always rip it out. I may have to rip out the last couple of rows; I'm not sure how early I want to start the barebellied look.