There’s one last project completed during the weekend at Mom’s that I’ve yet to show you.

It started the week before. I was distracting myself at work while browsing facebook, when an ad for a harvest apron came up. Now I have eleventy billion baskets – I have no need for a harvest apron. But they also hold tools and such – and that could be handy. One of the reasons I like my dresses to have pockets is to hold stuff while in the garden – but they aren’t great for holding a trowel.

So… I started browsing other types of gardening aprons. But all of them are full-size aprons, and I just thought and extra layer would be too warm in our sweltering summers. It was then I decided to look up patterns for aprons, and I came across this one.

I sent it to Mom, and she agreed it would be perfect – and pretty easy to make too. And I had just the fabric for it.

A line called Planted With Love. (I had a half-yard bundle, but the apron can be made with all fat quarters.) I brought it with me to Mom’s and while I was working away at the long-arm, she was sewing me a garden apron.

I told you they were the perfect fabrics!

This is not the best modeled picture I’ve ever done, but at least it gives you an idea of how it looks on. I think it’s going to be just perfect for keeping things handy while I’m out and about in the garden.

Now… if all that snow would do me a favour and melt…

Although most of the prognosticating rodents, (and one prescient lobster) here in Canada..

predicted an early spring for us, it’s certainly hard to believe it in my garden.

Friday night another blizzard blew threw. Dave and I got caught in on the way home from Sarnia that evening – and boy was it a doozy. But we made it home safe, if a little slower than usual.

There are signs of spring out there though…

If you look closely, you’ll see catkins on my pussy willow. Sadly, I can’t get closer for better pictures unless I want boots full of snow.

Instead, I’m staying inside and dreaming

I’ve got several seed catalogues to help see me through until the snow melts.

And these adorable little handmade, recycled envelopes are full of native wildflower seeds. I ordered them in December from the Ottawa Wildflower Seed Library!!!

Quite a few of them require cold stratifcation (ie the seeds have to be cold for a while before they will germinate) so I think they will be just perfect for some Winter Sow containers. I think that will be a good project for next weekend.

On my way to Mom’s, I made a slight detour to a large garden centre near her house.

I needed a couple replacement cacti for my gothic plant house I keep on the kitchen counter.

It perfectly holds six little pots, each with a cacti or succulent. But two had grown too large and had to be moved on, so I needed two more to replace them. This particular garden centre always has a good selection of cacti in tiny pots.

It didn’t take too long to pick out two perfect little babies to join the family. But then… something else caught my eye…

See those little purple bits??? Those are FLOWERS!!! One was actually in full bloom when I bought it, but sadly, I forgot to take a picture right away and it faded before I got the chance. I’ve never had a cactus in bloom before! I can’t wait for the others to open!

And last, I came across something I have been looking for quite a while…

It’s a Boobie Cactus!!! Ok… well actually, it’s scientific name is Myrtillocactus geometrizans Fukurokuryuzinboku…. but plant people just call it the Boobie Cactus. Don’t believe me???

It was on the label!!!!

Now I just need to find a penis cactus…

Yup… Mom’s cat Winnifred is still beautiful.

And she still hates me.

The last quilt in the quilt parade is that adorable little dragon quilt…

It’s now been packed up and sent off to the Grandma-To-Be to gift to her daughter next month. This one was a lot of fun to make. There are a lot of pieces. You have to be organized and take your time, but there was nothing terribly difficult about it.

The pattern calls for applique for the eye, but I opted to use my new-found embroidery skills instead. And don’t you just love that little dragon print? I’m so glad I got a chance to use it.

The back is a fun dragon flannel (because I love flannel on the back of a quilt – especially a baby quilt!) I have just enough of it left to make another dragon quilt for the shop. But first I want to move the Blockhead quilt out of the queue! Hoping I can make some good progress on that this weekend!

The next quilt in the parade is the Batik log cabin quilt

(We’ve got so much snow, I had to take pictures of the quilt on the horizontal – otherwise it dragged in the snow)

I started this quilt about this time last year, so it’s nice to have it finished. I love how the grey makes the pastels of the batiks pop, but is soft enough that effect isn’t over powering.

This quilt was made mostly from one jelly roll. Near the end, I had to add in a few strips from the wider batik stash. The blue doors were leftover from the snowflake quilts I made in 2023. And the grey solid it from one of the solid Kona bolts I keep in stash. (I have several neutrals that I keep in stock for backgrounds)

I don’t often do a batik back, because it can be quite expensive, but this one was picked up on sale ages ago. And the binding was a leftover batik from a quilt I made back in 2020! It was nice to do this one all from the stash.

This is the only quilt of this round that ended up in the shop. And it’s on sale!

From now until the end of the month, we’re doing a “Baby, it’s cold outside!” sale! 25% off!!!

(With apologies to our American friends – there is no way around pre-paying those tariffs so we still can’t ship to our southern friends)

Next up in the finished quilt parade is Kittens in Cups!

I made this one to showcase the fabulous fabric – Tabby Road from Tula pink! Several of the prints were large – so I needed something big to show them off. The pattern from Sew Fresh quilts was perfect!

But the really special part of this quilt is the back…

It’s Minky! And it’s sooooooo soft! Mom had apprehensions about backing with Minky (there are some real horror stories out there on the internet). But I made sure I used lots of basting glue and took my time putting it together. Her long arm had no problems quilting it.

The only (small issue) was that the nap of the minky, and weight of the quilt, did make sewing the binding on a little slower. And it you had to be careful handsewing it down on the back – it was very easy to slide across it and not get the needle in.

But other than that – no issues! I even have a chunk left – enough to use for the back of baby blanket… or maybe something for his Lordship?

I’m happy to say, I made it to Mom’s on the weekend as planned! So I have a parade of finished quilts to share with you this week.

First up is the quilt of all those embroidered blocks I finished last year.

Last September, I left it with Mom to do some precise ruler quilting on it. And as expected, she did and amazing job.

Simple, but perfect straight lines to highlight all those pretty floral blocks.

And of course, since he helped me not only in the garden, but in makin most of the blocks in this quilt…

we made a little label to put on the back. A fitting tribute to my never-forgotten garden friend.

More of my favourite bird pictures taken over the last month

…or cat house.

Like many of you, we are in the middle of a deep freeze. Just as the temps started to drop, Louis left his little cubby and dissapeared. He hasn’t been back to the porch for food or a nap. A neighbour informed us that he’s likely under the house of another neighbour up the street. He feeds the strays an apparently under his house is where quite a few take shelter. It’s probably how Louis has survived all his previous winters.

But still, Dave was upset. He was convinced Louis left because his house wasn’t warm enough. Dave didn’t like that the wind could still blow in the front.

So last weekend, when he made me stop at the hardware store it was to get materials to make Louis a better house.

While I was making Chocolate Chip Cookies, he was sawing and screwing. In the end, it’s the same idea as the first one with insulation and straw..

But it’s double the size, with two rooms (like Furby’s fancy one) so Louis can get tucked away from the wind better. The top also comes off so we can periodically clean out the old straw.