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Nikolai Returns, a Missing Motif, and an Aristocratic Addition

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Happy New Year! I hope it’s been a good year for you so far. The beginning of the year here at the Castle has been windy and very cold. I’m only just getting used to knowing what day it is, because the Twelve Days of Christmas passed by in a blur of cozy reading spots, Christmas cake, cookies, and many hot drinks.


We’re getting hit by a winter storm, but it’s still up in the air (haha) as to whether or not it will snow. In any case, we’ve battened down the hatches here at the Castle making everything snug and warm.


But now it’s back to work! And boy oh boy do I have a lot of projects planned for this year.

First on the list is Medieval Menagerie:


Medieval Menagerie by Fox and Rabbit Designs

Behold! Isn’t it stunning? The designers did a spectacular job with this chart. The DMC variegated floss is a treat to stitch with. Do you see those backstitch motifs by their hoof and paw? That was incredibly fun to stitch. It reminds me of blackwork, which now I’ll have to go and research. I took advantage of it being out of the Q-Snap to give you a big picture view of my progress so far.


But do you see what’s missing? Yep! There’s a missing motif by the lion’s head! Seriously, I didn’t even notice that I hadn’t stitched it until I added the picture to this post. Perhaps I forgot it in my excitement to start stitching on Nikolai again. So, I was going to say, “I got this band finished!” but instead I’ll just be happy with my progress and fight the impulse to go back, put this in a Q-Snap, and finish the band. That is a finish for another day!


As for what I’m stitching now, it’s Nikolai! His proper name is “Russian Hunting” by Riolis. If you want to see what he looks like, here’s my last WIP update picture of him from last year. In this post you can also see how far I’ve come since last year on Medieval Menagerie.


Link to the blog post is here.


I think my cat wants to have his say in this blog post. I left the room to take a picture of Medieval Menagerie, and he trotted across my keyboard. So, here’s Vicomte Philippe’s contribution to the blog, “ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww…” those W’s go on for a while, so I’m going to do some slight editing and remove most of them. You get the gist of what he’s saying. And very poetical too!


This New Year is going to be great!

Happy stitching!



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