Oct 23rd Monday Update

 Another Monday so time for Another Monday Update. Let's see what I worked on last week...

Monday was a day off. I did surveys and computer work all day. That's okay made money haha.

Tuesday was 1 year since my mom passed away. So in her honor I worked on a favorite WIP of hers...

Here is where it was before. I added 355 stitches to it...

She always wanted to steal this one to hang on her wall haha. I miss that. It did feel good to work on it again.

Wednesday I went looking for some white aida. I found some ecru and decided it was good enough. So I got busy and finished the last Halloween Mini on Saturday finally...

Here are all 9 now...

The fabric for the cauldron shouldn't show much at all when I do the cube finishes I would like to do. I doubt they will be finished for this year but I will make sure they are for next season. Love the way they turned out. 

It was a crappy weekend. A lot of drama. I still don't really know what's to come of it. Hurt feelings were definitely felt. I am really really trying hard to be the positive me I know I can be. Just get really frustrated that no matter how hard I try I just can't keep the drama away. People attack others just too easily. I wish more people would be as caring as I try to be. Hopefully it will blow over quickly and just be a bad mistake that never happens again. Hugs all the way around to my blog readers. 

Love yourself. Love each other. Be nice (is it that hard?). Smile.

Monday Update

I know I posted yesterday but it's Monday so here's my Monday update. Last week I worked on Iris (Rainbow Dragon) 2 days since I had the picture in yesterday's post I won't add it again. Then another older WIP called my name. Salt Water Taffy hasn't been out since April 21st, 2020. Remember this beauty...

Here it was last time...

I asked Jeremiah to pick from Top or Bottom. He said Top so I worked on the top of the design this time. 3 days later here is where I am now...

31 days into the piece now. Loved working on it again.

So February is tomorrow and so begins...

Embroidery.com is doing the fun Love to Stitch challenge again. Idea is to stitch 30 minutes a day. I have decided to start this Spring piece...

From New York Dreamer. I have finished Winter last January.

Have a great week. Love yourself. We might be getting a big snow storm. Right now they are saying over a foot of snow which hardly ever happens so we'll see.

April WIPocalypse

Yesterday was the last Sunday of the month. That means it's time for a WIPocalypse update. The idea behind WIPocalypse is to finish all our WIPs before the end of the world and no this stupid virus isn't going to be the end of the world. I won't allow it. I have way way too many WIPs still left to do. So I like to use this SAL to keep track of what I worked on and for how long. It's a fun way to look back at the progress I've made each month.

Pop over to Measi's blog to see what others have posted.

Here's my update and what I've worked on since March 30th...

99 Bottles -- 2 Days. Got the 4 bottles added for March and will be working on it this week to add the next 4 for my April goal...

Rabbit Freebie -- 2 Days. Started and finished this cutie up for the Easter blog hop...

All I need is... -- 1 Day. Finally got some more added to this old WIP...

April Fairy -- 5 Days. Started and Finished my monthly fairy...

Colorful Critters -- 4 Days. Started the new Stitchonomy SAL. I will give more information on this one in a later post. Two more have been released now. So far I've finished 4 parts...

Salt Water Taffy -- 1 Day.

Pizza Slice Mill Hill Kit -- 1 Day. Started this one at the cabin over the weekend...

Have to be careful with this one. Mom and Jeremiah kept trying to eat it haha.

Beer Dragon -- 1 Day. Added 254 stitches to this one...

 

13 non stitching days. Not too bad but definitely not the way I want it. I'm wracking my brain trying to come up with my May plan. I kind of want to join in Stitch Maynia but not with new starts. I don't think. Or do I? Or just a lot of progress on one piece? Or stitch with my monthly acrostic? Or do something totally different? Haven't figured it out yet.

I know tomorrow I want to start on the next 4 bottles for the 99 Bottles monthly goal. Most the time they take two days worth of time to stitch up. Guess we'll have to see what happens won't we?

#24HOCS January Challenges Update

I realize I just posted my update photos for the WIPocalypse pretty much so I'm going to shorten my #24HOCS updates to just basically include the information for January. If you want to see progress photos please go back just a few posts. If you enjoy reading my ramblings please continue.


1st Challenge is to stitch 24 hours throughout the month. Hahaha I had such a lazy January! I stitched a total of 90 hours and 13 minutes already not counting any stitching today. I did take Monday the 27th off because honestly I was tired after my marathon weekend. Wow! What a lazy month. Love it!!!

2nd Challenge is the acrostic (My favorite!)

✅ R - Houseplant SAL
Connection: Get it Ready 

Goal: Finish Getting Ready
Goal Met: Finished

 ✅ E - Salt Water Taffy
Connection: Joan Elliott
Goal: 4 Hours

Actual: 2 Hours 55 Minutes

Under on this one but happy with progress along with everything else.

Yesterday I worked on this one and finished up the left side of the chart. 

Since I haven't shared that photo here ya go...

✅ A - Stitcher's Code SAL
Connection: A Part of the SAL 

Goal: Finish One Part
Goal Met: Finished Part 4

 ✅ D - Beer Dragon
Connection: D in Dragon
Goal: At least 200 Stitches
Goal Met: Actually 800 Stitches

 ✅ Y - 99 Bottles
Connection: Yeast 

Goal: 4 Bottles
Goal Met: 4 Bottles Added

 ✅ S - Winter Time
Connection: Seasonal
Goal Met: 4 Hours 

Actual: 5 Hours 38 Minutes

 ✅ E - Merry Noel
Connection: Easy 

Goal: Finish
Goal Met: Finished

 ✅ T - Camping Out MH
Connection: Section with Tent
Goal: Finish Section at least 

Goal Met: Just Finished this section yesterday as well.

Here is a photo of the tent section...

**Today's Project** X - Wish Upon a Starfish
Connection: Just plain X's
Goal: 4 Hours 

Probably won't get full 4 hours but again with

everything else I will be happy with any progress.

 ✅ S - Boba Fett
Connection: Star Wars 

Goal: 4 Hours
Goal Met: Actual Time 6 Hours 16 Minutes

 ✅ ! - Jan Fairy
Connection: Excited to Start! 

Goal: Finish
Goal Met: Finished

3rd Challenge is a fun Holiday Calendar. Jenn gives us a fun calendar with fun/weird holidays listed on each day. You are supposed to pick 12 of them and plug in your stitching with the theme. The fun part of these are the stretch to make your stitching fit the theme. Anything goes pretty much just have fun explaining why you believe it works. So here are my 12 Holidays...

I used my acrostic projects because I totally forgot about adding in about my marathon pieces till just now. Haha I bet I could get all the holidays with all those 12 pieces added haha. Anyway let's see my craziness haha...

1st -- Commitment Day -- 99 Bottles (2 Bottles)-- I made a commitment to finish this project this year.

2nd -- World Introvert Day -- Merry Noel -- I stayed inside away from others in the world to work on this one. 

5th -- National Bird Day -- Salt Water Taffy -- There are some shore birds on this project.

6th -- Cuddle Up Day -- Winter Time -- During the winter I love to cuddle up under blankets and relax with my stitching.

10th -- Peculiar People Day -- 99 Bottles (2 Bottles) --  When you go out to bars and drink beer you will meet some peculiar people.

11th -- Step in a Puddle and Splash Your Friend's Day -- Wish Upon a Stafish -- If you step in a puddle on the beach you should watch out for a little starfish. Don't want to squish him.

13th -- Make Your Dream Come True Day -- Boba Fett -- Disney now owns Star Wars. Disney makes dreams come true every time we go there.

14th -- Organize Your Home Day -- Stitcher's Code -- I have a scissor holder to keep my scissors organized and safe from being used on anything else.

16th -- National Nothing Day -- Beer Dragon -- Wouldn't most people just like to do nothing except drink beer for a day? Boy my husband would!

22nd -- Library Shelfie Day -- Homely Houseplants -- I had to google this one. Then I literally laughed out loud. It's take a photo of your shelves day pretty much. How perfect I had stitched shelves my the upcoming plants SAL. 

28th -- Fun at Work Day -- Camping Out -- We go to our family campground for our camping now mostly and yes we do work there like cutting down trees and what not but boy we have fun while we work.

31st -- National Inspire Your Heart with Art Day -- January Fairy -- I love doing cross stitching. It's my art and it definitely inspires my heart.  

What do you think? I'm happy with all my progress. Now my next post will show my February plans.

August WIPocalypse

The last Sunday (or soon as you can after haha) of each month we have a fun reason to blog. It's time for a WIPocalypse update. The idea of this fun blog SAL is to stitch all of our WIPs before the end of the world. I think since I will never possibly complete all mine (mostly because I keep starting new ones haha) I am helping with holding off the world ending. I know I'm just sweet like that. Stop over to Measi's blog to see who has checked in and what they have been working on. For this SAL I like to keep track of what I've worked on and how many days I've spent on each project. So let's look back and see what I've worked on since my last post...

Nautical Year -- 4 Days. Started and Finished the August design...

Lizzie Kate Flip It Stamps -- 6 Days. Started and Finished the August design. Finally have time to share this one with everyone too...

 Salt Water Taffy -- 1 Day Here it was before...

After a good 3 hour 2 minute day of stitching...

I also got a day into working on Love 2 Stitch by Hinzeit but I left it at the cabin and forgot to take a photo.

This has been a bad stitching month with 16 days of no stitching but lots of fun has been going on so that's okay. Winter will be here before we know it considering it's already August!!!

Measi also gives us questions to answer if we want to Question of the Month: What do you have on your stitching bucket list?  (for example, specific projects, designers, fibers, etc) Honestly nothing that I haven't tried. I just want to continue loving how much I enjoy the hobby. I know I really wanted to do silk gauze and I've done that now. I love that now. So I can't think of anything else to add to my stitching bucket list. Unless actually finishing projects is one haha. I even have not one but two finished HAEDs on my wall. That's definitely something I wanted to achieve in my life. So I guess just finishing the things I want to finish in my future is all really. Like the Beer Dragon. I can't wait to have him framed on my wall. Just need to actually make progress on him haha. I need to find that extra time we all seek for.

Hope everyone has lots of stitching time in September. We'll see. The weather is going to cool down so some big projects will probably happen at the campground. We had to put them off because of the heat during the summer months. No reason to sweat to death when the project can wait. I don't want to just sit in a chair and stitch when I could be helping. 

Day 2 of Longest Hermit Weekend Marathon

Another wonderful day full of stitching yesterday. I did some other things mixed in so I noticed a little less time spent but that's okay. Let's see what I worked on...

Mom was first to pick and she picked Wish Upon a Starfish. I started working on it at 10:30am. Goal was to work on it for 1 hour. Finished 11:30...

2nd Jeremiah picked 99 Bottles of Beer. Fred will be happy to see this one out again. Looks like it hasn't been out since 2015! I had 45 bottles stitched...

Told Jeremiah to pick a number 1 to 4. He picked 4 since he's a slave driver. Started at 1:15pm since we stopped for a lunch break. 2:35pm I finished the first bottle and admitted my first fail. I wasn't going to stick with it to do all 4. It would have took way too long from my marathon. So we all agreed I could stop after finished up the first one...

Even though those bottles are little there are a lot of color changes. I forgot that.

3rd Mom picked 4 Seasons by Erica Michaels...

Goal for this one was pretty easy to pick out. Finish filling in the background of Winter. Started 2:50pm finished 3:35pm...

Next Jeremiah's pick was Merry Noel by Hinzeit a new start. I set the goal of finishing Merry and the background behind it...

I was really excited to start this one. But I noticed I was getting a little sidetracked. Fred talked to me for a bit. He's having a really great time at his radio event. I started this one at 3:50pm. I think I stopped at 4:30pm to get dinner started and do some other stuff. Got back to it 6:35. Finished my goal 8:05. Another one that was hard to put down. Won't take much at all to finish this one quickly. It's so small...

Mom picked Park it Here a cute beach chair from Noteworthy Needle...

Goal was to finish the shell stitch along the right side of the design. Then I just need to do a nun stitch around the edge and put it together. Love this thread. It's called Confetti. Started 8:30 Finished 8:55...

Last one for the day was picked by Jeremiah Salt Water Taffy. A piece I just LOVE working on. Love the bright colors. Here it was before...

Goal was to finish the mast and the small section to the left of the mast. This goal was hard to set. I wanted to do a lot lot more haha. Started 9:20pm Finished 10:45pm...

Another one I really wanted to just keep going on haha.

So 6 more projects for a total of 12 now. Love it!!! Mom keeps trying to cheat because there are a few she really wants me to work on haha.

 

I watched 11 shows today. Finished Riverdale on CW and started SWAT on CBS.

Back at it today. Fred will be home sometime this afternoon. We have a wrestling pay per view to watch tonight. So should be another great stitching day. See ya tomorrow with my wrap up post. 

IHSW

It's the 3rd full weekend of the month which means it's IHSW (International Hermit Stitch Weekend). We have a Winter Storm Watch for 4 to 7 inches of snow, 35 mph winds, and extreme cold temps maybe even below zero. Perfect weekend to curl up under a blanket, watch Netflix (The Punisher Season 2 just happens to be dropped today), and stitch.

This good old WIP is coming out to play again...

Here is Day 17 progress as of yesterday morning...

I did get a little bit of progress yesterday but not much. Plus it takes too long to get a new photo and I want to go stitch haha. So watch Instagram for quicker updates haha. See ya Monday with a new progress picture. Go stitch!!!

Smalls SAL / July WIPocalypse

We got back yesterday from our 5 night camping trip in Ohio. I'm so exhausted. We had a blast. The weather was perfect and we were actually cold at night instead of sweating to death. Anyway I will update more on that later this week. I need to do two SAL updates first.

Smalls SAL -- The goal for this SAL is to finish up a little small each month. I joined a few years ago and have decided to do a year long design that represents each month. This year I'm stitching the Durene Jones Calendar. I actually haven't finished July yet though. My stitching time has been almost gone. I have got a good start on it though and I really hope to have time to stitch tomorrow on it but I have accepted I might not finish it before the month changes. I tried so hard too...

July WIPocalypse will be just as sad I have a feeling. This purpose of this fun SAL is for us to finish all our WIPs before the world end's. Of course with my list I will probably never be finished. I like to use this SAL as an excuse to keep track of what I work on each day during the time span. Let's see what I've been working on since June 25th...

Salt Water Taffy -- 3 Days of Progress. I got this WIP out and let it play for a few days. Here it was before...

Now...

I really hope to get back to this one soon.

Durene Jones Calendar July -- 6 Days of Progress. I really wanted to be able to say start and finish like normal but just not this month. I already showed above where I am on it. Hopefully it will be finished soon.

I've had 26 days where I haven't stitched at all since June 25th. We've been scrambling to finish our cabin and our big camping trip this past week. I swear July was only a day long it felt like. I really hope the rest of the year slows down now. We'll see. Stop over to the WIPocalypse check in to hopefully see others progress better than me.

Okay. Now I'm off to try to relax some more and catch up on blog reading.

June Smalls SAL and Monday Stitching Update

Friday was a check in for the Smalls SAL and even though our leader Heather has been missing several of us are still stitching along in spirit and hope she is back soon. The idea of this SAL was to stitch something small each month and maybe even finish it. When I started this SAL I thought it would be a good excuse to a do a monthly design to represent each month. I've really enjoyed it. This is my 3rd time participating. I've been doing the Durene Jones Calendar pieces each month this year. Here is June all finished and on display...

Last week I picked up a WIP I had been missing...

Salt Water Taffy from Joan Elliott. Evidently I hadn't worked on it since January 2018 which didn't seem possible. No wonder I heard it screaming for attention. Here it was last time I worked on it...

I got 3 days of stitching on it during the week...

Now I have 17 days total into it. I really missed working on this one. Felt great to pick it up again. I need to remember not to take such a long break next time.

I did pack some stitching to take with me on our extended cabin stay. Hopefully I'll squeeze in some time. I hope everyone in the US has a great 4th of July.