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!

Any weekend plans we had for being outside were washed out. It was grey and cool with rain on and off all weekend.

Since sewing time is always limited when gardening season rolls around, I decided to take advantage of the enforced indoor time and get to that machine.

On Saturday, I finished up the last four blocks of the Sewcialites sew-along. With work and everything else, I got terribly behind on this one, so it was nice to finally have sometime to catch up and get them done.

I laid out all 24 blocks together, and as you can see, it’s going to be a pretty wild and crazy quilt.

Or … you would be able to see without all those cats in the way! (how you can always tell it’s raining around here… all the cats in the bed)

Here they all are, completely feline free.

I’m pretty sure I know how I’m going to lay them out for the final top, but I won’t give it away just yet. You’ll have to wait! And if our skies every clear up, it could be a long wait! The gardens are calling!

Now is the time when the tulips start to show off.

Like the daffodils, I mixed up all the bulbs and planted them randomly all over the place. I had bulbs from the townhouse, as well as mixes from bulb catalogues and some mixes from the hardware store. It’s been fun watching them all come to life… and there’s much, much more to come.

And also coming to life…

I’ve got a couple Bleeding Hearts. The white one is further ahead than the pink one, but it’s also a little more established.

I have two lilacs, but only this one (Bloomerang) has flower buds. The other one, Madame Lemoine, was almost dead when I got her. She’s got nice leaf buds, but she’s still very small compared to Bloomerang. It might be a year or two more before she’s big enough to bloom.

Both the Crown Imperials are looking lovely still .

And I was quite delighted to discover that in addition to the purple, pink and white Grape Hyacinths, I also got this lovely light blue! It wasn’t listed as par of the mix, but a few bulbs must have snuck their way in. I feel like it’s a little bonus!

As I mentioned earlier this week, one of the things I didn’t get to last weekend was siting my fire pit.

But the project has actually been on the to-do list much longer than that. Last spring, I’d gotten this lovely metal outdoor fireplace on sale.

But we never got around to actually figuring out a place for it and getting it settled.

Mid-week, after work, but while Dave was busy teaching, I decided its finally time. After almost an hour of indecision, I finally settled on a spot for it and got digging.

As much as I’ve complained about the recent rain wrecking my landscaping plans, it made removing the sod a lot easier than it otherwise would have been.

After the sod was off, and the ground was level(ish), I dumped in a few bags of lovely black slate.

After that, it was just the simple matter of settling the fireplace on top!

And now I just need some marshmallows! Of course, it’s been too wet to actually have a fire yet…. but soon enough…we’re going to burn, baby burn!!!

(In case you’re wondering about the white lines on the lawn…. that’s where I’ve got more sod removal to do for more flower beds!)

As spring slowly rolls into nicer weather, I put the kitty cabana back out in the catio yard.

And despite it’s luxury, it looks like it’s not enough for his Lordship… I should make some pillows perhaps?