EmnEllie Cross Stitch Blog

  Photo by  Matt Seymour  on  Unsplash My local classical music station has been serenading me with Christmas music and carols this month. It’s absolutely wonderful. While I might not be posting to the blog very much over the 12 Days of Christmas, I do plan on kicking back and watching a Christmas special from my favorite shows for each of the 12 Days. With a hot beverage and a warm blanket, of course. We’ve stocked the Castle Larder with Turkey, so we’ll be eating a lot of Turkey. Lots and lots of Turkey, in addition to the absolutely essential metric ton of Christmas cookies. All this talk of Christmas food since December began has inspired me to start designing a Christmas pudding chart for next year. While I’ve never had a traditional Christmas pudding that gets set on fire (really) I would absolutely be game for trying one out. This video shows you how to make one, and gives a fascinating history of the dish as well.  Stitching continues on the Lion. Medieval Menagerie by Fox and

  Photo by Ash Ashley on Unsplash Summer is in full swing here at the Castle. Sunny days, hot weather, and stitching. The Okra, Bell Peppers, and Italian Eggplant are relishing this heat. The volunteer Tomatoes are also surprisingly alive considering that the temps top 100 degrees here most days. While I was watering the garden, a Cardinal stopped by to see what I was up to. It stared at the water coming out of the hose, and if I could read minds (or speak Cardinal) I’d bet it was saying, “Interesting phenomena. A localized storm!” Or maybe it was just thirsty :) We have a Hummingbird feeder full of sugar water, but I’ll set out a dish of water for the other birds too. As for me, my beverage of choice lately is unsweetened seltzer water. I find that it’s so much more refreshing than soda, and much less sweet, which I prefer. Super sweet drinks and food just don’t catch my fancy. If I had to list my favorites so far, in no particular order they would be: Lemon Lime (a classic) Passion

Photo by  Cristian Palmer  on  Unsplash   Happy Wednesday! It's been a rainy week here at the Castle. There's been so stormy weather, it feels like at any moment the Castle will float away, or look like those underwater castles that people have in their fish tanks. But let's hope it doesn't get to that point! It's been a longer amount of time than usual since my last post, but I was working on a solid block of cross stitch, and didn't want to report back here until I had some good progress to show. Here's what I've been working on!  Behold! A shield! Nice, steady progress, and here's the result. Don't you just love that variegation? Keep your eyes open on my shop for the next few days, as I have a new chart coming. It's a band sampler, and a red band sampler (being a red band sampler makes it better!).  Here’s the link to my shop. Medieval people ate French Toast? And the Romans too? I think I still prefer maple syrup…

  Photo by  Bjorn Snelders  on  Unsplash Happy Tuesday! Finally getting some May sunshine here at the Castle. Some Black Eyed Susans have started to bloom, and volunteer tomatoes have decided to grow in the raised beds. Not having a good time getting my Italian Eggplant seeds to germinate, but I bought a new seed packet so hopefully those will have better germination. The last time I shared a WIP update, the crown wasn’t finished. This time, I finished the crown, and made much more progress on the shield and that bottommost band:  Do you see that backstitch near the Unicorn’s hoof? It was such a joy to stitch! I used one strand of floss instead of two. After pondering this for a bit, I’ve decided not to stitch my initials and the year on the shield. Maybe I’ll do some tiny backstitch at the very bottom when I’ve completed it, but I’m not feeling it for seeing my initials in the middle of the finished project. It’s not that I hate the way the initials would look (they're lovely!) it

  Photo by  Ray Hennessy  on  Unsplash Happy Monday! “April showers bring May flowers,” is how the saying goes. But so far here at the Castle, it’s been April  and  May showers! Not that I’m complaining about rain- I love a rainy day. This year has been strange for my garden. I planted a bunch of seeds, but only got my okra to germinate. 100% germination too! But the peppers and eggplant refused to germinate. So I went back to the drawing board (or seed container in this case) and placed the new batch of seeds in a paper towel. I sprayed the paper towel with water, placed it in a plastic container, and left the container in a sunny spot of the Castle. Over the next few days, I made sure that the paper towels stayed moist. After that, I planted those seeds in a seed tray. Well, the paper towel seemed to work wonders for them! I’ve got Italian Eggplant! Thank goodness too, because I adore Eggplant Parmesan. Now it’s just a waiting game for the bell peppers. While we’re still talking abou

Photo by Alice on Unsplash   Happy Monday! Do you collect buttons? Let me put that question another way; do you have a button tin? In the Castle there’s an ancestral button tin that’s filled with buttons from garage sales, from family members, clipped off of coats that were on their last legs, and from trips to Hobby Lobby or Michaels. I think that a button tin is an essential part of every house. What if you need a new button? Go to the tin. What if you want to add an accessory to a finished piece of cross stitch? Go to the tin. As the years go by you’ll amass quite the collection! I recommend using a cookie tin for button storage; cookie tins give your button collection a bit more gravitas. More of that, “ephemera is here,” feeling. Plus you have an excuse to eat cookies. Win-win! Here’s a very interesting and informative post about Czech buttons. For instance, did you know that the Czech were famous button makers? I certainly didn’t.  Here's the link to the article. Moving on t