Monday Update

Lots to talk about today. It's been a busy stitching week again. But first I wanted to share that I participated in an exchange which I haven't done in YEARS. Needlecraft Haven in a nice online bulletin board type of group.  I seen a few of my blog friends joining in their exchanges so thought I would check it out. The exchange I joined in was called a Valentine's Exchange. We were to include a paid of socks (Valentine theme), 2 matching DMC and a card. My package is taking the long way there. First my husband's postage machine didn't put enough postage on it so it showed back up at my house. Now it's taking the long way to get from Indiana to New York. I will sure be glad when it finally shows up safe and sound. I'm going to show what I sent because I don't think my exchange partner reads my blog...

3 pack of Socks, 4 DMC, card, and little piece of fabric. This is what I received in the mail...

The chocolate sure looks yummy. It was a lot of fun and definitely not my last exchange. I missed joining in.

Now let's look at what I stitched on last week...

Every day I put a half hour into the Heart freebie for the Embroidery.com #lovetostitch challenge. Here is what it looks like right now after Day 16...

Sunday the 9th a new plant came out but I worked on 99 Bottles to get the 4 bottles in. Monday I was busy and only got a little start on the 5th plant. Then Tuesday was a long day and I only got in my 30 minutes on the heart freebie. Wednesday a new plant came out. I felt way behind. Of course the 5th plant and 6th plant were big ones. Never fails. #5 was finished Wednesday. #6 wasn't finished until Friday. Saturday I really really wanted to finish #7 and #8 so I could be actually caught up. I did it!!! Here it is now...

#6 was the tall one in the pink pot. It's called a ficus lyrata or fiddle leaf fig. #7 is the hanging basket and I love it so much. It's a Devil's Ivy because she said you can't kill it. Sure I bet I could haha. #8 was back up on the shelf on the right in the blue pot. It's an aloe vera plant. With that I was finally caught up. I was curious how long I worked on it last week because it felt like FOREVER. I put in 16 hours and 59 minutes on this one!!!! Total now 32 hours and 54 minutes. Told you I feel like it's taking forever. Wow!!! 4 more plants now though. Then it will be done. Next up is a chinese money plant AKA pancake plant that goes on the top shelf on the right. Can't wait to see where the others go.

Sunday since I was actually caught up on the plants I pulled out Beer Dragon. It was called for both squares of my WIPGO board. If you haven't heard of that it's fun challenge where you make a bingo type board filled with projects you pick out and goals. Then you set rewards for each bingo you get. Each month 2 squares are called. 3 and 23 were picked this month and I had 200 stitches on Beer Dragon for each square.

Here it was before...

After 546 more stitches...

So my WIPGO goals for the month are complete. Wohoo! I will update the page on the tab at the top. I think the next numbers get picked on the 27th.

So this week's goals. Keep up with the Heart Freebie and 2 plants on the Homely Houseplants SAL. Since we have a weekend away planned the Friday and Sunday plant will have to wait till we get home. Then I'll play catch up again till it's finished. So hopefully I can mix some other stitching in there too. We'll see. My dad is retiring Friday so we are going down to celebrate with him. Plus a weekend at the cabin. We are very happy about that. It's been since Christmas. We miss it. No outside work so I'll take some stitching with me don't worry.

Hope everyone has a great week!