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Jacket Potatoes, a Fantasy Triptych, and a Harp

 


Jacket Potatoes

Do you know what’s delicious? English Jacket Potatoes.
I’ve started eating these recently, and they’re so tasty! You can use a bunch of different toppings and potato types as well. I’ve eaten this with baked potatoes, but personally, I prefer using wavy fries as a base. They’re a sturdy fry, so they can hold their own against whatever toppings you use. I’ve had a couple of different toppings, like chili, but my favorite toppings are baked beans and shredded cheese with crispy onions. It’s so warm and filling.
WIP Updates
Nikolai (Russian Hunting by Riolis)
When I started working on Nikolai again at the beginning of the year, I was overly ambitious for a page finish. A page finish didn’t happen, but I’m still thrilled at how much progress I made! Here’s where I was on January 12th of this year: 
And here’s where I finished at the beginning of this month: 
That bushy green tree on the left was barely there in January! I’m experiencing that full coverage effect, where you don’t think you’ve stitched a lot, or you have no idea what on earth you’re stitching, until you step away from your project and see it from afar. Suddenly, all that paying attention to which symbols call for what blended floss pays off! If you squint or pinch and zoom the picture, you can see the modest amount of progress I made in the next column. Those yellows are for the sky. I only have about three-ish more columns left before I can start a new page, but since that won’t be until this November, let’s move on to the next WIP that’s been patiently waiting for many, many years for its time in the sun.
Fantasy Triptych by Teresa Wentzler
Dear readers, I had to delve deep into the archives to find out when I last stitched on this WIP. Get your shocked faces ready- it was 2020. Maybe I’m guilty of being hyperbolic, but maybe not when I say that 2020 was practically an eternity ago. My normal stitching method is not to mark off my charts while I’m stitching. If the project even remotely resembles a full-coverage chart, I work in 10x10 blocks. Unfortunately, that’s not what I was doing six years ago. To my horror, when I opened my project bag and spread out the Triptych on a Q-Snap, I discovered that past-me wasn’t stitching in a grid. But that wasn’t the horrific part. I had no working chart to use. By working chart, I mean a printed copy that I would have made from the original chart, which I would then mark off as I progressed. So, six years is a long time for me. Someone in the Castle helpfully looked into the plastic tub where I keep everything associated with the Triptych, and found a binder that I had apparently used to keep my working copies of the chart. The wave of relief I felt over that was something else! I was staring down at those confetti stitches, thinking that I had met my doom.
Here’s what it looked like when I started it: 
And here’s what it looks like now: 
My first order of business is to fill in as much of that empty white space in the middle as possible. I want to stitch up to a line, so I can then begin stitching in 10 x 10 grids and park my floss, just like I do on Nikolai. So far, there’s a lot of fiddly confetti, but I’ve actually filled in some gaps. I put this Triptych into my biggest Q-Snap, an 11 x 17. My plan is this: stitch my way across the lower half of the chart, then go up and stitch the upper half. I’ll do the specialty stitches and the cross stitch, but I’ll save the backstitch for the very end and do it all at the same time. Those Algerian eyelets are incredibly fun to stitch!
Phantom of the Opera
I finished the chart in my last post, but at the time, I hadn’t finished making my YouTube video about it. It’s here now if you’d like to watch it:

Irish Harp
Irish Harp Cross Stitch Pattern by EmnEllie on Etsy

St. Patrick’s Day is coming up, so I decided to stitch one of my Irish patterns.
Here’s my progress so far: 
The backstitch really makes this pattern! It was so fun to design it, and it’s very satisfying to see what it looks like in real life. I watched a video and researched exactly how to make this particular knot. The pattern calls for antique white fabric and DMC 987. I didn’t have any more 987, so I changed the fabric and the floss, so I could stitch from my stash. I’m using white evenweave fabric and DMC 986. If you’d like to stitch this chart, it’s available in my Etsy shop right now. Here's the link.

Odds & Ends
  2. Some music to listen to while you stitch: 

  3. This was so fun! I love quizzes: Quiz: How Quickly Can You Name the Jane Austen Character?
  4. There’s a new chart in my Etsy shop! Blessed Sacrament Cross Stitch Chart by EmnEllie on Etsy

Happy stitching!

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