With the Seascape socks done and dusted, I wanted to have something new on the needles. As you know, I haven’t been knitting much, and with garden season officially here, the available time has been cut even further, but I still like to have something on the go so I can just pick it up whenever the mood strikes.

And socks are the perfect thing for that.

The yarn is Knit Picks Stroll and the colourway is Gumball. I originally ordered it to make something for my neice, Rowan. But when I got it in my hands, I decided I wanted to keep it all to myself.

So these will be an pair of ankles socks just for me. The cuff is 3″ long, and knit in 2-2 rib. The foot will just be plain stockingknit.

While I am already on the gusset of these, I don’t expect them to go much further very fast. My digging adventures on the weekend were one of the biggest jobs on my list – but there’s still lots of others out there. The weekends just aren’t long enough to do it all, so that means working on my to-do list after work.

Maybe sometime in June things will slow down a little…

The finer weather has brought about the return of the toads!

I came across several as I was working in the yard over the weekend. So far, they’ve all been pretty small. None the size of Anthony Hopkins, who hasn’t made a return to our side porch yet.

And of course, the return of the toads means it’s time for Lemmy to discover them!

He was surprisingly gentle…

No claws used, but I still don’t fully trust him, so I relocated our tiny visitor to another garden.

I’m sure Lemmy will get his paws on a toad INSIDE the catio soon enough. Hopefully he decides they aren’t tasty enough to cause too much trouble.

As you can imagine, not a lot of stitches got put into my thistles this weekend. I basically worked outside until I ran out of light, not leaving a whole lot time time in the evening for stitching.

But I did manage to add some more green – finishing up the leaf on the bottom and extending the stems up to the other buds. There’s still some filling in to do before I start on the other thistle flowers, and the butterfly at the top is a long way off.

But there’s no deadline for this. A stitch or two here and there is fine for now.

We finally got some decent weather this weekend, and I spent most of the weekend looking like this…

What was I doing that got me so dirty? Digging.. digging, and digging some more.

Well, actually, first I got some mulch down on all the non-planted areas of Edible Alley (and Willow Grove tucked away behind it.)

Then I got out my shovel and removed all the turf in a nice little border all the way around.

And then I topped them up with some nice black earth. We have really nice sandy loam here, so the black earth is really just a bonus for the plants.

Those new borders will be planted up with a whole pile of perennials. I won’t say just what yet, because I’m really not sure myself. I have two boxes of bare-root plants sitting in the house, and another two on the way. Plus… all the garden centres have opened, and I may have snagged a new plant or two when I was getting mulch and soil.

I also took advantage of the nice weather to paint up a could of things. First was the old raised bed I had the strawberries in. (Next weekend, it and all the other raised beds, will get filled with soil.) Second was the old wooden ladder I’d gotten last year at a garage sale. I’m going to experiment with growing squash vertically, and it’s going to serve as my trellis.

And as if all that wasn’t enough, I also removed the turf for a new bed out front.

I had to remove at least some of the lawn to plant the climbing rose I have for the trellis. And I thought, why not just made a bed the whole length of the walkway to balance the driveway garden on the other side? I wanted to make it just as wide as the driveway garden, but to be perfectly honest… I just couldn’t dig any more! That’s okay, it can be expanded next year.

Like the back, it got topped up with some nice black earth too. My climbing roses will be here this week, and you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be planting them right away!

It was a good thing I got the studio cleaned up last weekend, because a few days later…

I got a few deliveries of new stuff!!!

Why am I’m buying quilting supplies when I have very little time to quilt? No idea. But the sales were good, so whatever. I won’t bore you will all of it, but here are a few highlights.

I absolutely fell in love with this collection of Water Lily fabrics. I got a Fat Quarter bundle and a little bit of coordinating yardage.

I got two different cat-themed collections because cats are always popular in the shop. And of course, I love cats!

I’ve been wanting to make a fall quilt for a very long time – and I fell in love with this collection. I think it’s those old trucks!

This one hasn’t arrived yet, but…

It will be here soon! It’s called Green Thumb, and it’s a collection by Edyta Sitar. Both Mom and I adore her fabrics. Mom has several of her collections, but I’ve been waiting for the perfect one. And this one is definitely it. I’ve ordered it in the half-yard bundle – so much beautiful fabric!!!!

And last…

As a quilter, you can never have too many pairs of scissors. Especially when they tend to go missing and come back with nicks in them. But if I find these in anyone else’s hands… it’s going to get bloody!

The tulips continue to do their thing as we welcome in May. My particular favourite so far is this beautiful wine and white one.

Most of the daffodils are starting to go over, but there’s still some hanging in there.

These ones are very tiny, and I just adore them!

The white bleeding heart is looking just spectacular. This makes me so happy.

I had one at the townhouse, but it never did very well. I love to see it doing so well here.

The red one is doing nicely too, though not quite as big. I might move it to a better spot when I dig some more gardens.

It will be a few weeks more until we see blooms on the Lupins, but I love how the leaves look after the rain.

And look at this perfect line of water droplets on this Honeysuckle leaf!

May has been very rainy so far, but I’m hoping for a few dry days this weekend so I can get some things done in the yard. Planting season is ALMOST here!!!

Up until yesterday, it was nothing but rain here. And the easiest way to tell it’s a outside…

… ALL the cats are in the bed.

The bed is normally Rupert’s domain*. Sometimes you’ll find one, maybe two of the other cats up there with him, but the only time you get all four is when the weather is bad.

* (until dinner time – then he’s an outside cat until I make him come in around 9… but that’s another story).

I am happy to say, after faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar too long, I’ve completed the Seascape socks!

And I am just THRILLED with how they turned out. There’s nothing fancy here – it’s just a 3-1 rib throughout. But the wow factor comes from the yarn. It’s Knitpicks Static – a wild self-striper. (In the colourway Seascape).

And though I didn’t plan it, the stripe sequence almost matches exactly! It’s about two rows off, but it’s hard to tell unless you line them up side-by-side.

I have no plans for these – they will go in the gifting box. When the time is right, I’ll know who they were meant for.

Sunday brought more rain, so I went back to the studio. But I didn’t end up sewing. It won’t come as a surprise to long-time readers… but I am very bad at properly cleaning up after a project.

I have a tendency just to move things out of my way, and end up shuffling a lot of piles.

As soon as I headed into the studio, I had the urge to do something about it. And even though I really wanted to sew something.. I’ve learned not to ignore cleaning urges. They don’t come along often, so I have to take advantage when they do.

One thing that really needed doing was the taming of scrap mountain. When I finish a project, I throw all the leftover fabric (anything less than a 1/4 yard that is) into a big basket. The idea is to cut it up into pieces and sort it into my scrap bins. Ideally, I’d like to do this at least once a month. But it usually ends up being about six months between cutting sessions. It was definitely overdue.

Happily, the world’s most handsome feline is always willing to keep me company while I toil. It took several hours, but I soon had every last scrap cut, sorted, and put away into their respective scrap bins.

It might be hard to see the labels, but the sizes I cut to are 2.5″, , 3″, 3.5″, 4″, 4.5″, 5″, and 10″ squares. I also have bins for 2″ strips, and 2.5″ strips.

These bins are where all my wonderful scrap quilts emerge from. My current Leader/Ender project actually depleted several of the bins so it’s nice to have them full again.

Another thing I try to do with leftovers is cut and prep binding. When we trim the quilts after quilting, there are usually some good lengths left of the backing fabric. I like to cut these into 2.5″ strips, sew them together, and iron them into binding.

I measure out how many inches I have, and mark it on a piece of scrap paper.

Then they get bundled up and put in my binding bin. The idea is, that when I finish a quilt, I check here first to see if I have something that will work with it.

Now the studio is feeling much tidier, though there’s still a few things left to do…

I hear you, Lemmy! The Flannel Foothills are looking rather daunting and need to be tamed too. On the next rainy day, they will be chopped into 5″ and 8″ pieces. I plan to make some pet blankets to donate to local animal rescues, as the flannel scraps are really adding up!

With Butt Nuggets all stitched up, it was time for something new. But I had no idea what I wanted to stitch!

I browsed through online pattern ideas for hours until I finally settled on something.

I found this pretty Butterfly on a Thistle pattern on Etsy. I really like the watercolour feel of it. On Friday night, I got out my floss box and sorted out all the colours I would need for those thistle flowers (and there are A LOT!)

I’m very glad Mom made me this organizer to keep my project all together.

I got one thistle head one, and some of the green completed on the weekend.

And while it’s not big… this project is not simple! There are so many symbols in the flowers. You really have to pay attention!