A Cardinal, a Garden, and a Border

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 Fruit (sooo refreshing and tropical)
Coconut (I love coconut flavored everything)

The latest flavor I’ve tried is Black Cherry. Outstanding! It’s also a very different taste from the other flavors that I listed, so it’s a nice change of pace once you’ve had a few days of the other more tropical flavors.

Now don’t worry- this hasn’t changed into a food blog! I have some stitching to share too.

After finally finishing that shield, I decided to move on to the border on the left-hand side. For a quick reminder of where I was at my last WIP update, here’s a link to my last post:

French Toast, Water Water Everywhere, and a Shield

EmnEllie

Jun 7

French Toast, Water Water Everywhere, and a Shield

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!

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And here’s where I got to:

Even though I haven’t been stitching every day, I’m still pleased with how much progress I’ve made! Filling in those solid blocks of cross stitch on the shield took a very long time. Now that I’ve finished doing that, I think I’ll be making progress at a bit of a faster rate. It’s not that I mind going slow- the process is the point for me-it’s just that I got used to making a bunch of finishes by finishing off those tiny motifs that were on the other bands. I’ve gotten spoiled! But all that being said, I’m very happy with how the shield turned out. That border is so much fun to stitch and lends itself to the color change effect of the variegated floss. The lion looks a bit tricky, so to make sure I don’t make a mistake, I’ll finish the border around him first, so that I have a better reference to work off of.

Since last month, there’s been a new addition to the shop, so head over there if you want to check it out. Link to my Etsy shop is here.

Happy stitching!

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