Back when I had my little finished quilt parade, you might have noticed one missing… my gnome quilt.

I’d left it with Mom to work her magic on. I wanted some outlining on the panel, and she’s really good at free-handing that kind of stuff.

I told her she could leave the rest for me, or finish as she liked. She chose the latter option!!!

And it’s no surprise, she did an absolutely AMAZING job.

What an artist! I can’t wait to bring it home in a couple of weeks!!!!

I haven’t gotten out for a walk every day since last Wednesday, but I only missed a couple.

Here are a few of my favourite things from around town this week:

A house on our street has a butterfly house in their garden! And though it’s hard to tell, the currently dead bush beside it is a butterfly bush! I’m going to have to get pictures of this later in the season, because I bet it’s just beautiful in bloom!

Another house a few streets over is a converted church. I was just delighted by the juxtaposition of their little church birdhouse to their own churchy house!

And last, in front of the library, there’s a memorial for the young men of the area lost to the First World War. It’s not only a beautiful piece of scuplture, but a poignant reminder that the conflict reached far and wide, including little towns like ours.

Another weekend come and gone, and my little Tudor Bee continues to grow.

She got some honey comb, and her crown. And I completed most of the vines from which her flowers will grow. I think there’s only a few more weekends work left on this one! I’ll have to start thinking about what to stitch next!

April’s rainbow scrap challenge colour is pink! And instead of waiting until the end of the month like usual, I was able to dig deep in my scrap bins and get a good collection of pinks and bang this one out right away.

Burton couldn’t wait to help show it off…

Uh… Burton… we can’t see it if you’re standing on it…

That’s better. I think this one might be our favourite one yet!

Yes… I’ve been messing around on Facebook Marketplace again…

Last week, I took an extended lunch from work, and Dave and I headed out to Petrolia, a town about 30 minutes from us. I had a mission. There was an antique store there that had something advertised on Marketplace that I wanted very badly…

As you know, I have a lovely little sun porch. (Well, its kind of a mess right now, but it will be lovely). But the furniture I had on it, while serviceable, wasn’t quite what I wanted. I wanted something I could lounge about on…put my feet up and knit, or work away on my lap top.

I’ve been looking at modular patio sets all winter… and boy howdy, are they expensive. (Not to mention, they all look alike… so plain and BORING!)

So I started trawling Marketplace, and that’s when I got an AMAZING idea. I love my bamboo rocker which lives on the porch – why not try to find some used pieces to go with that? I started checking Marketplace every few days for things that might work. There was a surprising amount of bamboo/wicker/rattan furniture out there, but nothing that tickled my fancy (and some if it is still VERY expensive). Until there was.

Excuse the mess around it (the porch becomes somewhat of a storage area in the winter) but isn’t it great? Can’t you just see a gnome quilt draped across it? The porch will get cleaned up soon, and when the danger of frost is gone, my plants will be back out there. I think it’s going to be the perfect place to relax this summer

And yes… within five minutes, it got the official seal of approval

Looks like I’m going to have to share.

After we got it in the truck, Dave spied a thrift store across the street, so we popped on over. Dave didn’t find anything he needed, but I did.

I don’t know why, I just had to have these pillows for my bed. I think they will look even nicer when I have a proper headboard behind them.

Rupert, however, wants to know why one ginger cat on the bed isn’t enough.

Playing in the garden is still weeks off, but it was finally time to start my seeds indoors!!!!! Two Sundays ago, I got to it!

I might have bought waaaaay more seeds than I can start inside, but that’s okay. All of this is a little bit of an experiment, so if this fails, or doesn’t go well, I can start some other stuff outside when the weather is warmer.

This is my first time using little peat discs. They are very neat, just add water and they puff right up.

I had 180 little discs, so I split them into groups of 12, and planted two types of Columbine, Beard Tongue, Oriental Poppies, Shasta Daisies, Cupid’s Dart, Blanket Flower, Astilbe, Lupin, Sweet William, Black Eyed Susans, Malva, Penstamon, Delphinium, and Potentilla.

Everything was placed in my little DIY grow station.

And by the following Thursday…

I already had sprouts on three of the trays! (Black-Eyed Susans, Lupin, and Malva).

And then another week later…

Almost everything is sprouted! The only thing that hasn’t is a tray of seeds I took from plants I had at the townhouse. I’ll give them a little more time, but I’m so pleased with the progress already.

I have two desks in my office (one for work computer, one for personal) and I was in need of a second chair for the second desk. I found one really cheap at our favourite used store (where we got our awesome lighting)

Apparently it was a really good buy. It got the triple-cat seal of approval!

Or quilt…

The second block of Blockheads was released last week, and Burton and carved out a little time on Tuesday to get it done.

This one came together quite quickly and like Burton, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. Now you may notice that the background in this one is black, while our first one was white.

And you’re right. We’ve decided to alternate the background on our blocks between black and white. When put all together, we should get a fabulous mod checkerboard effect!

Of course, we’ve got a lot more blocks to go until we get to that point.

In an effort to get on top of my health, I’ve been trying to walk more. Every day if I can. It’s something I’ve tried in the past, but it never really stuck.

Where were used to live… well, it wasn’t the most pleasant place for a walk. It was safe enough, but traffic made it quite noisy, and it was mostly just bland suburbia. Not much to look at.

Now this town is small, only about 2,500 people, but it is old (you can read a little history here), and especially being new, there is lots to look at and discover.

To help keep me motivated, I’m staring my own Walk-about Wednesday. Every day I’ll post a picture or two, or something interesting from my weekly walks.

If this is something you’d like to do… feel free to add Walk-about Wednesday to your blog! I’d love to discover the places you like to walk too!

So without further ado….

The picture doesn’t do it justice, but around the corner from us, a house has very nice big pond. I’ve driven by a dozen times, but never noticed the pond. It wasn’t untilI was going by on two feet that I heard the water from their little bucket waterfall. (almost in the centre of the pic beside the goose)

Dave and I really want to put in a pond here -unfortunately, it’s not high on our priority list, but it’s something to dream about one day.

That same house had a cat in their garden made from old scrap. It took me a moment to realize the body was an old fan! I just love scrap art!

And this always makes me giggle when I see it. One whole block has brand new sidewalk (within the last year or two) and on one slap, there’s these wee foot prints, embedded for all time! They are too big to be a squirrel, so I’m guessing probably a raccoon.

That was fun! Thanks for checking them out. I can’t wait to see what next week’s walks bring!

And this wasn’t found on walk, but in my own back yard!

I have snow drops!!! Well… snow drop.. .there’s just one. But I suspect I’ll be finding more in the next week or so!

Tiny Needle Tuesday is here and I have progress to show!

It’s not as much progress as II might have planned on – that quilt top ate up a lot of time. Still, progress is progress…

And now my little Queen Bee has a couple flowers beside her, and is happily encased in her border. There’s still lots more to do, but I’m not in a terrible hurry to get this one finished. I’m just thoroughly enjoying the process.