February is almost over, and while it certainly wasn’t frugal, as I planned, there were more fabulous finds!

A couple weekends ago, Mom brought me this – and old Singer treadle machine. It belonged to my Great Grandmother. Sort of… the cabinet was my Great Grandmother’s. But the machine that was originally in it was beyond repair – so a few years ago, Mom replaced it with one in better condition.

Mom’s had the cabinet for as long as can remember. I have very vivid memories of laying on the living room floor with my feet on the pedal, pushing it up and down

The veneer on the piece that folds over and covers the machine was badly damaged, so Dave’s been working on restoring it. But then we stopped into our favourite used store, and I saw this.

For those that aren’t familiar, it’s the coffin top from a similar Singer of the same era. It would have looked something like this.

It’s a different table, but that box would still fit over my machine head… so I grabbed it. When we got home, we moved the machine into it’s semi-permanent spot (it will get moved when we finish other rooms in the house), and I put the coffin top over the machine.

Other than not being attached (it would have been hinged on its original machine) it looks like it belongs there! Dave’s still going to refinish the proper lid for the cabinet, but I think this is a great solution for now. I can always turn the coffin top into something else later.

Here’s a closer look at all those pretty machine details.

The next fabulous find was found the same day and place we found the coffin top.

It’s actually made to go on it’s side, and many of you will recognize it as an open filing cupboard. It probably sat atop a large desk at home point. My first thought when I saw it was… I can put fabric in that!!!

When we got it home, Dave gave it a fresh coat of white paint to match my cutting table/dresser. Then we hefted it up on top (it’s darn heavy)

Naturally, someone had to come in and give it a thorough inspection

I’ve got a stack of comic book boards coming, and when they do, there will be an afternoon of going through the yardage to wrap them all up into mini-bolts of fabric. I’ll share pics of what it looks like when it’s full of a rainbow of fabric!

And last… a few days later, we came across this as another thrift store.

It’s something I’ve been pondering for a while. We mostly use the side door in the kitchen to come and go. But there’s no where to sit and put shoes on. I’ve been looking at them on FB market place, and most people want between $100 and $150. I don’t think that’s outrageous, but you can bet your bottom dollar I was over the moon when I saw this was priced at just $25 at the thrift store!!!

Dave was a little dubious about my vision of where it would go, until I explained that all my shoes that he’s normally kicking around the kitchen can go INSIDE. I’ve never seen a man agree to something so quick in my life.

I cleared out space for it, and immediately, it too was thoroughly inspected and claimed.

It sits just inside the dining room (which faces the kitchen). The side door is just to the left so it’s the perfect place to sit and put on shoes. And since the dining room and kitchen are open concept, the lovely warm pine will be the perfect match to Grandma’s table and hutch when we finally finish that room!

Now there’s only a couple days left in the month. I wonder if any more fabulous finds will find a way to cross my path?

With all the sewing I’ve done lately, I’ve blasted through another pile of scraps for my Leader/Ender project. And all those scraps turned into…

Ten measly blocks! Can you believe it. Each one of those blocks uses eight parallelograms. So there’s 80 parallelograms made from scraps… it feels like a lot until you get them all together into blocks.

Still. It’s 10 more added to my stash, which gives me 41 in total. Lemmy and I did some calculations, and we think 56 will give us a decent-sized lap quilt.

So that 15 more blocks to make! We’ve got more sewing to do!

When you last saw my gardens, everything was green and beautiful and I told you something bad was coming!

It hit Wednesday. It started out as wet snow

I think Burton’s face sums up how we felt about it.

After a few hours, it looked like this….

And the snow turned to ice pellets – then freezing rain. It continued overnight, and in the morning, we woke up to a crunchy icy wonderland. Happily, we didn’t lose power, which was my main concern when they announced the impending storm the day before.

All my poor little bulbs were buried, with barely a hint in sight

Only a few were above the snow. Happily, they weren’t so advanced that this little freeze will hurt them.

My pussywillows look a little sad with their little hats of ice (but I just love that pop of pink!!!)

There are just rows and rows of icicles on every eave and edge around.

I probably should have brought my solar lanterns in for the winter, but they look pretty with their little crowns of icicles

And everywhere everything is just encased in ice. It would have been prettier if the sun was shining, but though the storm had passed, the skies remained grey.

The weather is warming up again, so all this frostiness won’t last. But I’m sure Mother Nature has another round or two left in store for us

Everybody is kung fu fighting…

Those cats were fast as lightning…

It was a little bit frightening…

But they kept kung fu fighting**

** Not the lyrics, I know…

The other day, I decided to finally try out the long lens I’d gotten in that great camera score.

Unlike the townhouse, most of the squirrels here are still very wary of me. So they seemed like the perfect subject for this stealthy paparazzo and her fancy new lens.

I was not disappointed…

This beautiful grey girl was very excited about the fresh batch of peanuts I’d put in the feeder.

I spent a good half an hour or so snapping pictures of her as she ran back and forth grabbing one peanut at at time…

The lens is even better than I hoped.

I can get decent shots from almost clear across the yard.

Now… to try it on all the wonderful birds that come to the yard!

This last little while, I’ve really needed some mindless knitting, so I (temporarily!) set aside the lace shawl to give that poor neglected Static sock some love.

And I managed to get the first one finished! The Static yarn (from Knit Picks) is just as nice to knit with as their Felici and Stroll (I suspect it’s the same base). And as you can see, it’s dyed, more or less in stripes, but in a crazy, wild mottled pattern. It makes a nice looking sock. This colourway is Seaside.

I have a couple other skeins of it in the stash (Beekeeper and Peppercorn). It looks like Knit Picks is doing the same thing with the Static as they do with the Felici – releasing a pile of colourways each year, and discontinuing the others. The colours up on the site now are all inspired by old… sorry…. retro TV shows.

I’d like to buy some more, but the yarn closet is overflowing, and I don’t knit as much as I used to. I’ll just have to be content with the skeins I do have.

I finished up the frolicking foxes on the weekend. That last, sleepy fox and the few leaves left took no time at all to complete.

Then it was onto the outlining in black. Sometimes all that back-stitching can be a slog, but like everything else on this project, it just flew by.

The leaves, particularly, look a lot better with their outlining. They look like leaves instead of weird blobs. But the foxes faces definitely needed the definition. And I love how the outlining is all broken, and sketchy, really evoking that feeling of floof!

I’m still debating how to properly finish this piece. My original idea was to sew it into a panel on a purse or a bag. But that would require me making a purse or a bag, and they aren’t my favourite things to sew.

I may just get it professionally framed. It’s such an odd shape and size, I probably won’t be able to find a frame to fit it.

So I’ll sit and ponder it for a while… and go looking for a new tiny needle project!

Two weeks have passed since you last saw my Round Robin quilt, and that means two more prompts.

Prompt #3 was hourglass, and like the spool prompt, it had me a little stumped. I don’t have a lot of experience with it. Though there are several ways to make it; I think the “nicest” is as a quarter-square triangle. I’m getting better at them, but they can still be tricky.

Like the spool, I decided to wait for prompt #4.

And boy, was I excited when I found out prompt #4 was geese! I knew just what to do

First, I made up a whole boatload of giant geese

These geese are 8.5″ x4.5″ – the biggest geese I’ve made yet.

Those geese got sewing into sets of four, then each set was sewn facing another set. and boom! Hourglass!

I still needed something for the corners though. So I whipped up some HSTs, and sewed them to some plain squares and boom!

Put them all together, and what do you got???

Another fabulous round on another fabulous quilt!

I’m not the only one excited about the milder weather.

The cats have been outside more than they’ve been inside lately. I think Lemmy’s little muddy adventure was the catalyst to him FINALLY figuring out the cat doors. I haven’t actually seen him do it yet – but he ends up outside without Dave or I opening the door, so the only other option is teleportation.

And when they are out there, there’s a whole lot of this:

and this:

And definitely this:

They are going to be even more upset than me if the weather turns in March.

As for many of you, this winter has been exceptionally mild. It’s not unusual for us to get a burst of above freezing temps for a few days, or even a week in February, but it doesn’t last.

Except for this year.

Other than the first week, day-time temps have consistently been above freezing, even making it into double digits a couple of times. And its expected to remain that way right until the end of the month.

Of course, that means my gardens are getting very excited.

There is just green everywhere you look! And not just bulbs, but most of the perennials are greening up too.

I’m trying not to get too excited. Normally, I wouldn’t see flowers of any sort until the middle to end of April. I did plant some early bloomers (crocus, snowdrops, and winter aconite) but still – in a normal world, I wouldn’t be seeing them bloom until early April at the earliest.

I certainly wouldn’t be seeing hyacinths budding up in mid-February!!!!!

Andy pussywillow “blooming” this early – definitely unusual

So far, it’s only the pink one. But the black one isn’t far behind – and the regular one, and weeping pussywillow out front are budding up. As are the lilacs and my Burning Bush.

It’s got me really worried that this mild February means something really nasty is coming for us in March!