EmnEllie Cross Stitch Blog

It's Wintertime And lately the weather has gotten it's act together. Nothing but cold windy weather in the forecast for the next few days. Call me crazy, but I like cold weather around Christmas, not muggy warm weather. Go figure, right?  If you want to get into the season too, but the weather where you're at is being contrarian, I recommend this YouTube video. Play it on your TV for maximum effect!  Around winter, I always have the desire to read The Lord of the Rings. Great books, and it just feels right to be curled up under a blanket and reading about Hobbits, Elves, and Rings. So I started the Fellowship of the Ring recently. Do you like winter reading too?  Russian Hunting and Irish Cottage Sampler It's not all fireplaces and Hobbits around here. There's been stitching too!  Progress on Russian Hunting: Sorry about the lighting, it's a pretty overcast day.  I can see a tree! See it? In the upper right hand corner? That's the uppermost part

Happy Advent! Because it's not Christmas yet! However, I have decorated the Christmas tree 🎄 Other Christmas preparations include gift wrapping, and the unearthing from storage of my Christmas mug. (Which I neglected to bring with me when I sat down to write this post. I will post a picture in the next blog post).  I'm a big fan of Christmas music. However, this Advent music CD is stunning.  Those nuns sure can sing!  Mind you, I do like some Michael Buble around Christmas as well.   25/7 Update  This system of stitching is really remarkable. I've made a good amount of progress on Russian Hunt by Riolis  using the 25/7 method.  Progress so far: Tackling it in 10x10 squares, like HAED people do. Also parking my floss. So far so good! I am currently working on some trees and what I think is the sky.  It's really incredible how much one can acccomplish in 25 minutes.  The first time I saw this beautiful Riolis kit was on the blog The Copper Fox.   After that I

Thanksgiving was wonderful, as always. The million dollar question is; what's better? Thanksgiving dinner, or the Thanksgiving leftovers?  Every year, I look forward to making the leftovers into what can only be called the ultimate sandwich. It's commonly called a Monte Cristo . The blog  Taste and Tell  describes a Monte Cristo like this: "It is believed that the Monte Cristo started off as the French Croque Monsieur, a grilled cheese sandwich with Gruyere and ham. Then, starting in the 1930s, more variations of this sandwich started to show up cookbooks, then in the 1950s, it made its way onto a menu in a southern California restaurant under the name of Monte Cristo. It then made its debut at Disneyland in 1966." There's a recipe at the link too. For Thanskgiving leftover purposes, I like to use turkey, pepperjack cheese (because that's the melty cheese in my fridge) and jellied cranberry. Give the sandwich a try, it's absolutely delicious . So since we

Gobble Gobble Hello stitchers. It has been a quiet and pleasant week. But wow has the week just flown by, it went from Sunday to Saturday at breakneck speed. November has done the same thing, I can hardly believe that next week is Thanksgiving. That being said, it's also dawned on me that the time I have to get a finish on Turkey Bay is dwindling away.  Here's my progress so far: The colors are much more appealing in real life. It's just an overcast day at my castle. Now, the original chart intended that flower behind the pilgrims head to be a pale pink. Through some mistake, that flower is brown. But I'm ok with it. I don't want to frog the flower, and I also think it has some charm. I'll call it the gravy flower. The black and gold border is stitching up quickly. I decided to stitch it with 3 strands of floss instead of 2 because I like the way the 3 strands really pop.  The waves were enjoyable to stitch, not just because I was ready for a change

Hello cross stitchers. I feel relaxed and refreshed after my short vacation. How was your Halloween, All Saints and All Souls? All was quiet, fun, and seasonal here. We actually had some chilly weather, so that was nice. Good amount of trick-or-treaters and plenty of leftover candy (I promise that I won't eat it all. Hah)  Vampires In a questionable move (because I am a coward, I freely admit that) I checked out Dracula by Bram Stoker as an audiobook from the library. Unabridged and terrifying, it was read by Simon Vance. Glad he had a British accent. Somehow that makes audiobooks just a little bit better. It'll be awhile before I throw the garbage out after sundown.  Spools of Floss While out at Michaels, I stumbled across this amazing floss.  Floss? Are you sure it's not thread? After all it's on a spool? Nope, no mistake, it's definitley Anchor floss!  Lord Libidan has a wonderful article about the spools of floss. From the article:  &quo

Halloween Coming Close  Halloween is inching closer and closer! 👻🎃  Not only am I stitching in season, I'm also getting my TV / podcast viewing arranged in a seasonal manner as well. Recently, I checked out Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as an audiobook from my local library. Sufficiently spooky, I think. Will most likely listen to it as I stitch :)  On the TV front, I'm trying to remember which Poirot, Miss Marple, and other detective stories are freaky, scary, or even a Halloween special.  At the grocery store the other day, I picked up an amazing coffee creamer. Hazlenut, very tasty. Also got a bottle of French Vanilla creamer too, because why not?  Now let's get to my wip update: Trick or Treat Moon Progress has been slow and steady. Lots of color added to the border: Ohhh orange and purples. Such a great contrast against that black aida. More of the border:  That brown cube is a caramel, I believe. 😋 And this 👇 is a tootsie roll: It cal

Thought I forgot, huh? Here on a Monday. A bit not according to schedule, but I have a good excuse for not posting last Friday. The weather was atrocious, and instead of taking my update picture in dark, miserable lighting, I decided to take my chance on Monday. Thankfully it's an absolutely beautiful, clear and sunny day.  On a seperate note, I think as we get closer to Halloween, I become more of a sweet tooth. Pretty sure I've already eaten my weight in Reeses Pieces.  Let's jump into my progress on Trick or Treat Moon. Wip Update  Behold:  See that border? Stitches up very fast. I turn on a Podcast and it practically stitches itself (hyperbole alert!).  The moon itself has two basic floss colors. One for an outline, and another to fill in the main body of the moon. My strategy is to stitch the outline first, then fill in. It's working so far, and I'm pleased with how fast it's going. Close up: Please ignore the cat hair on the black a