EmnEllie Cross Stitch Blog

Happy Wednesday Thanksgiving was wonderful. It's such a happy holiday, and it lasts in my heart all year round. On the more practical and less romantic side (but still very delicious) Thanksgiving also lasts until all of the leftovers are finished. That means that I finished Thanksgiving yesterday. Next step, adorn the Castle with Christmas and Advent decorations! Circle of Georg Flegel, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Why am I posting an artistic representation of waffles from the 17th century? We'll cover that in Odds & Ends. In the meantime, let's proceed to the cross stitch. Cross Stitch Corner Remember my optimism from a few posts ago, where I boldly declared that Turkey Bay would be finished before Thanksgiving? That proved to be a bit... overconfident. However, someone helpfully pointed out that there is a Thanksgiving weekend, so technically Turkey Bay could still be in my rotation. (Yes, I am a seasonal stitcher). Happily, I can report that I have a finish...

We need to have a talk about Cranberry sauce.  Photo by Rasa Kasparaviciene on Unsplash It's easily one of my most favorite sweet sides when I have a savory main dish. Besides the most well known Turkey-Cranberry combo, there's: Chicken and Cranberry Ham and cranberry Pork and cranberry. It might sound like a weird combo at first, but remember that pineapple and pork go well together Cranberry sauce in a sandwich. The Monte Cristo (the king of sandwiches) comes to mind Next up is the big debate; jellied or whole berry? I like them both, but I lean towards jellied, because I think it looks so pretty in slices on a plate. A cold slightly derailed my progress on Turkey Bay, but I've still got some progress to share: The gravy boat is done! Stitching the gravy boat handle was so much fun. That new pumpkin on the right is adorable, isn't it? Those orange swathes above the right hand side of the boat are flower petals.  The curly green thing next to the gravy boat handle is ...

Don't you just love November? Thanksgiving, Fall weather, wrapping Christmas presents in anticipation of December. It's a lovely month. A general observation. People seem to split into two camps- those who stay in Autumn mode in November, and those who start decorating their house with Christmas decor in November. I'm a Autumn mode in November person. Here's a good example of this. Would you eat those Little Debbie Christmas Tree cakes this month? Or would you wait for next month? Are you listening to your Michael Buble Christmas album of an evening this month, or not? Moving on to my WIP update, here's my progress on Turkey Bay: The gravy boat is looking good! And those waves are so fun to stitch 🌊 I've also picked up Red Alphabet Sampler again. Finished the letter N and now I'm working on the letter O: Sorry about the poor lighting, but I'm writing this post in the evening. Anyways. This chart is one that I designed, and while supplies last, I'm g...

October was here and gone. That means a few things here at the Castle. The first is that the Halloween decorations have been put away, and Fall decorations will take their place. Secondly, Trick-or-treat moon will return to its project bag- and Turkey Bay gets to come out for a whole month. Pretty good progress for one month! Getting that border connected was really rewarding. I never did get to the Cats mouth though… Anyway. More pictures: Behold! My Autumn project bag! And that's where I got to on Turkey Bay last year. First stop, finishing that Turkey in the bottom-left corner. Modest goal for this month- finish Turkey Bay. Lately, I've noticed that when people stitch my Irish charts, they've been adding a surname and a wedding date. Currently, I don't have a chart that allows for that. So, I've decided to design an Irish wedding sampler. It will have numbers, letters, and a place to put a wedding name, and a wedding date. Stay tuned! In the meantime, here's ...

Can you believe that it's almost Halloween? It feels like October just started yesterday! My Halloween night movie lineup will probably be one (or all) of these movies: The Mummy (1997 with Brendan Fraser) Jurassic Park (the original) Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein (hilarious!) I may also watch something else, and that will most likely be whatever my streaming service recommends. Chances are I won't be stitching while watching these movies, since you can't eat candy, be scared by a movie, and stitch all at the same time. At least I haven't figured out how to. Letters have appeared! Those candy corn letters will be much more legible when the backstitch goes in. That little orange blob above the checkerboard is a piece of candy corn. Lastly, here's a big picture of Trick-or-treat Moon Happy stitching!

  It's been a busy week here at the Castle. I put out the Halloween decorations, which I didn’t feel capable of doing until after September 30. Yes, I’m one of those people. In other news, I understand that people love Pumpkin Spice (even though I don't like the flavor) but I think that just because it's edible, that doesn’t mean that you should make a Pumpkin Spice flavor out of it. For example, someone made a Pumpkin Spice Ramen.  Here's an article about it from last year.  I believe they're selling it this year too. Bleh! Now, a nice, hot mug of Apple Cider is something I can support! Delicious! This week, more of the Moon's face is done, and the outline of his eyebrow has appeared: My plan is to keep stitching the Moon until all the cross stitch is done, which will hopefully be before the next post. I have high hopes, since it's stitching up so quickly! After that, I'll go back to stitching the sign at the top. Happy stitching!

  Happy Tuesday! A happy taco Tuesday to you as well. I like to think of Monday evening as “taco Tuesday eve.” Some people are either in the corn tortilla, or flour tortilla camp. I like both, but I like making homemade flour tortillas.  This is a really great recipe.  However, I also love taco shells, and that's the kind I'm having tonight. With a side of refried beans, of course. Now that October is just around the corner, I have to start thinking about appropriate Halloween-ish reading. Last Halloween, I listened to the audiobook, Dracula, by Bram Stoker. That was a terrifying story. Whenever I hear “Carpathian Mountains” mentioned, my mind instantly goes to Dracula. So for this year's spooky book, I'm thinking of reading Frankenstein. Hopefully it won't scare me as much as Dracula! Meanwhile, although Sampler September is wrapping up, I feel that I've made good progress on my latest chart, Red Alphabet Sampler. As October is in a few days, in my next post, y...