I was able to get some stitches in this weekend. And as a result, I got about half of the stitching done above the butterfly (and as you can see, I had to move my stitch minder gnome to the bottom of my piece).

There’s still some work to do on those leaves, and a flower to add… but this one is inching ever closer to the end!

I believe I already mentioned that I’m on vacation this week. There’s only a couple things I really want to get done while I’m off work. 1st is paint the inside of the darn sun porch. It’s a total chore and I keep putting it off. 2nd is getting some real quilting time in.

But… both are hard when the sun is shining because I just want to be in the garden.

There’s lots to see including newly bloomed irises. This one is called Burgundy Party. My white, and dark purple irises are pretty much finished, but this one, and the yellow/white reblooming iris I have are going pretty strong.

And of course, there are more to come.

In the fall, I planted a mix of alliums – it was supposed to be a mix of mid-purple, light purple and white.. but so far, I’ve only gotten two types.

This nice, very tightly packed mid-purple one. And this…

It’s petals are thinner and spikier – and as you can see by my hand – they are pretty darn huge! I think there’s at least one white one coming, but who knows – it may only look white in bud.

All my ornamental sages are starting to take off. I have them in several shades – this white, a light lavender, a bright pink ,and a nice purple. The bees love them, and they bloom on and off all summer.

So far, we’re having a fantastic showing of Columbine. Despite these guys.

They are Columbine Sawfly (a cousin to the ones I get on my roses), and they completely defoliate the plants (though they leave the flowers.) It usually doesn’t kill the plant, but it does make it look rather sad. Happily the leaves will grow back, and we may even get more flowers later in the season. But I will be on the watch for these guys next year.

And my lilac have finally bloomed. Tinkerbell is on the left, Bloomerang on the right. Bloomerang is right beside one of my garden benches and it’s nice to sit there and enjoy her scent.

The Widows Tears (also known as Spiderwort) are blooming and as you can see, they are a favourite of the bumblebees.

Over in the woodland garden, the Jacob’s Ladder has bloomed. It’s a very pretty flower. But the one thing I’m super excited about in that garden…

Pink Forget-Me-Nots! Did you know there was such a thing??? I did not! So you bet your bottom dollar I snapped that one up fast. Another blue one came along too. And since then I’ve found more growing among the daylilies in the fence garden. I have no idea where that one came from but it’s very welcome!

No flower on this one, but I was very happy to find it at the garden centre last week. It’s a trillium. A native plant and one I’ve wanted for a very long time. And the pot I got had three plants in it. They are now disbursed among the Woodland Garden.

These will be too – just as soon as they are done blooming!

This lovely thing is a purple Verbascum. It was one of the clearance perennials that overwintered in the raised beds. It’s now moved to the outside of the catio (it replaced a mum that died off) and it seems quite happy there.

And it’s Lupin time! I was a little disappointed that this one out front was yet another dark purple one (I was hoping for a different colour) but it’s still pretty – and I had no lupins out front.

I’ve got two different purples out back, and this pink one inside the catio.

And as pretty as all these are – there’s so much more to come. The roses are budding up, there’s more irises waiting to pop… the peonies should flower soon, the poppies all have big heads… every day is a new discovery in the garden

This weekend is the big “gardening weekend” in the province. It’s the Victoria Day long weekend, and the nurseries and garden centres will be packed with people, getting their bedding plants and vegetables now that our frost date has passed. (we can still technically get frost, but it’s extremely rare).

I do not enjoy the hustle and bustle and chaos of long weekends, so Dave and I went out during the week, and hit up a couple of garden centres for a few things.

One of those things was broccoli. You may recall that I started some broccoli from seed in the house but…

Well, you can see it’s just not looking that great. I have a feeling the light I bought off Amazon was not quite as strong as advertised.

My tomatoes are in much the same shape.

They are starting to get true leaves, but the sprouts are terribly stretched. So I picked up a tomato plant as well.

Sadly, it’s not a yellow tomato – but a Sweet 100s cherry tomato (regular red).

I’m still going to try with my sad little sprouts and see if I get anything else out of them. It cant hurt to try.

Elsewhere

My potted potaotes are looking good. A couple more weeks and I’ll be topping up the soil.

My shallots seem quite happy. And the garlic…

The garlic is absolutely ecstatic! And so am I! I’ve never had much luck with garlic, but I think I’ve finally cracked the code!

My spinach and lettuce had a bit of a hard start, thanks to digging from the squirrels

But the few spinach sprouts that survived are really coming along nicely.

And the lettuce isn’t doing too badly either!

The rest of the veg seeds have now been planted direct – but there’s not much too see there since I only planted them a few days ago. But we have lots to look forward to including:

• Carrots
• Three types of bush beans (two green, and one yellow)
• Sugar Snap Peas
• Celebration Squash (a fancy acorn squash)
• Cucumbers
• Zucchini
• Cucamelons
• Baby Pumpkins
• Fancy Gourds

And of course we have raspberries and strawberries to look forward to.

And the neighbour gave me some shoots from his thornless blackberry bushes. I just have to find a spot for them!

It’s going to be good eating here this summer.

It’s no secret that I haven’t been able to get in the studio and do any sewing lately. But I did need to get in there and do a little tidying…

Believe it or not, it looks like this because I HAVEN’T been able to get in there and sew. But I have gone in to search for things, or toss in new purchases… and well – do that enough times and it just creates the havoc you see here.

The weekend before last, I took Sunday to do a good cleaning on the upper level of the house (our bedroom, my bathroom, my office.. and the studio). I got in there and put all that fabric away, and got it all nice and tidy for when I do actually have time to do some sewing (at least one day on vacation will be devoted to sewing SOMETHING!!!)

One thing that helped was a recent find at the ReStore.

They had eight of these stackable bins for a$1 a piece. I remember seeing bins like this when I was a kid in school – usually full of art supplies and such. As soon as I saw the, I knew they would be perfect for fabric. The bins on the right house “collections”. Mostly fat quarter bundles with some coordinating yardage. ON the left, I have some other collections (yard bundles, and a couple fat quarter bundles) and a bin that’s full of random rolled fat quarters that I’ve picked up at Walmart, Lens and the Dollar store. Because they are rolled, they don’t fit nicely on the CD rack, I repurposed as random fat quarter storage.

Of course, what I REALLY need to do is get in there and start using up some of this darn fabric!

Oh Lemmy – may all your wee kitty wishes come true!

Just as I’d hoped, I finished the pink socks before I start my vacation.

I am very pleased with them. They aren’t even close to perfectly matched and I love it! To recap, the pattern is Undine (one of my own), and the yarn is SR Kertzer “On You Toes”. It’s not super soft, but it feels like it will be a nice hard-wearing yarn (like Regia or Kroy).

So that’s that! These are now tucked away in the gift box- and I’ve already got something cool on the needles. But you’ll have to wait a bit to hear more.

I didn’t expect to have another Walkabout post so soon, but the other day, I was short on steps, so after work, I took a longer walk than usual. Up the far end of town, I discovered a very large pond.

The road that runs along the side of it is called Mill Pond road, so I’m guessing it’s an old Mill Pond!

I couldn’t get down the the edge of it. I didn’t see an easy path, and I wasn’t dressed for it anyway, but there was a large sign by the road giving details about all it’s denizens.

It was after dinner, and you could definitely hear some of those frogs! They were singing their hearts out!

The pond was almost completely surrounded by shrubs and trees, and many of them were blooming

Unsurprising, there were several lilacs, but there was also this shrub with pretty star flowers. Google is telling me it’s an Autumn Olive

This neat yellow one is a European Barberry. And the pink one is a type of Honeysuckle. Unlike the two I’ve shown in my garden, this one is not a vine. It’s a pretty dense shrug. And funnily enough, I have one in my yard. It’s between the driveway and the side porch, and I didn’t even know it bloomed until this year. I plan on moving it to the other side of the yard, but I’m going to wait until it’s done blooming.

I’m hoping to take another walk down there soon, and try to get to the pond’s edge… and maybe spy some of those turtles!

No… you didn’t read that title wrong. There’s no Tiny Needle Tuesday this week because I have not crossed a stitch!

I said I wasn’t going to buy any new plants for the gardens (because of all the seeds I’ve started), but we all know that was a lie…

This isn’t even all of them. Over the next couple of days, I’ll have posts of what they are all for. But some of the above was specifically for the fairy garden bits and pieces I showed you a short time ago.

A small village of gnomes has popped up on the front step…

The gnomes have taken up residence in this old washtub, amid Celosia “trees” and Creeping Thyme and Alyssum “shrubs”

As you can see, they appear quite happy in their new home

And over in the Woodland Garden, the Maple tree has a new resident.

Some Lobelia hedges line the path to this quaint little abode.

So far, it’s just this one wee gnome living there, but I heard there are some fairies set to move in later this week. I hope they don’t get too wild and disturb the neighbours.

It’s always nice to see your stitches being worn and enjoyed.

You will all know how thrilled I was to see this picture of Miss Wren of Facebook the other day.

She looks FABULOUS in her dress and shrug!

And I’m so happy to see it looks like she’ll be able to wear the shrug for quite a while. I was definitely winging it when I was upsizing it!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mom’s of all sorts out there!

I’m not able to see my Mom today. Last week the mechanic gave us the unfortunate news that Dory shouldn’t make any more long road trips, and I need to start looking for new wheels (an expense I’m NOT looking forward to).

Mom’s going to come out next week when I’m on vacation, so we will still celebrate – just a little later.

I do have a present for her (sorry, no spoilers), but since she’s not getting it today, I put together a little something else for her.

Growing up, there was almost ALWAYS music on in the house. And when we were teens, my brother started playing guitar. Mom was a big supporter and got into music in a big way. She went to several concerts with both of us, and we frequently shared CDs among the three of us. In fact, we still share new music we discover – albiet digitally now- and have even brought Dave into the music-share-athon.

So in her honour, I created a play list of Mom music. These are all songs that, when I hear them, I think of Mom. They aren’t necessarily her favourites (I tried to stick to one song per artist – for some of these, there are SEVERAL songs that make me think of her.

Now, if you’re inclined to check it out – be warned.. it’s a LONG list. There’s over four hours of music. And it’s a pretty wide range of styles and genres.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom! Keep rockin’!

P.S.! We’re also having a Mother’s Day Sale in the shop – 15% off everything until Monday!