Despite all the craziness of the last few weeks, I’ve tried to take a few minutes each day for me to decompress and do a little knitting. As a result, I finished up my Mr. Dress-up socks.

Because of the time of day that I finished them, it was hard to get a decent picture on the fence. So I decided modeled shots would be better. I took the socks off the blockers and sat down to put them on my feet…

Umm… thanks Relic.

Really Relic????

Well… despite Relic’s “help” I did manage to get a few decent shots.

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To refresh your memory, the yarn was some Wollmeise leftover from the cardigan I made Paisley for Christmas. It had a nice semi-solid tone that was perfect for the pattern.

And now it’s official… all the knit stuff (needles, doodads, EVERYTHING) is packed. There will be no stitching for a few days. But as soon as things settle in after moving day – I’m cracking open those boxes and starting a new project!

If you’ve been on our Bearbottom Facebook page, you’ve already seen these… but I convinced Mom it was time to see if there was any interest in her amazing mandalas from other crafters.

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So they are in the shop now and ready for you!

There’s so many things your can do with them. Once we get settled, I want to dye up some of my own, and use them for a quilt (they’d make a great centre piece for a quilt)

As you know, Moms’ been doing her fancy quilting on them…

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… and turning them into pillows. But you could also use them to make tote-bags, wall-hangings… the possibilities are really endless.

They are all dyed on 100% cotton – a nice quilting quality. Shipping the the U.S. and Canada is free. Our etsy shop doesn’t ship to other countries, but if you’re from further away and are interested, just send us a note at bearbottomquilts@hotmail.com and we can figure something out.

This will be the last garden post from the townhouse.

I’ve pulled up everything I’m taking with me, and hopefully most of it takes well at the new house. I am leaving some stuff behind for the new tenants – the berry bushes, butterfly bush, and lilac. The daisies, coneflowers, and susans in the back yard are staying too. (there was more than enough of these to take some for myself and leave some behind.)

In the side garden I’ve left a mile of lily-of-the-valley, and black irises (and taken some too), and out front, there’s still plenty of orange daylilies to keep the front yard cheerful and welcoming.

I am bringing all of my fancy asiatic lilies with me. I love these classic white ones.

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The echinacea (coneflower) is in full bloom. While some will stay, I’ve got a good chunk to come with me. It’s a wonderful butterfly magnet – I just couldn’t be with out.

The yarrow is showing off it’s nice dark pink shades now. Pollinators love this one. It comes in lots of colours, so I’m hoping to get more for the new place next year.

The butterfly bush is just starting to bloom, and I’m so glad I got to see her flower before we leave.

I’ve even had a monarch visitor already! This will be one of the first plants I buy for the yard – I’m thinking maybe a purple one!

My White Lighting rose bloomed. It’s coming with me. She’s my absolute favourite – she has the most amazing smell.

The raspberries are starting to ripen – just in time for me to enjoy a few before we’re gone. They are small this year, but still yummy. The neighbour at the new house has some – they are growing through the fence and hers are HUGE! I’ll put new bushes in there next year, and see how well I do with them.

The big success of the garden here has been the strawberries.

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They’ve been big, abundant, and juicy! And I’ve managed to get most of them before our little yard critters. All of the strawberry plants are coming with me, an I can’t wait to build them a garden box just for them! I want miles of strawberry plants now that I have the room!

And last, I leave a little present from our Squirrelington patrons.

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I didn’t plant and sunflowers this year, but I still got some! And who could object to such happy, cheerful interlopers. You can bet more will be planted yearly at the new house!

And while I’m a little sad to say good bye to this little space – I worked eight years to turn a barren yard into a little floral oasis – I’m very excited about the clean slate I have to work with at the new house! Onward and upward!

Another weekend is here, and as you read this, I’m hopefully at the new house, building a catio fence.

I mentioned earlier in the week that we got a fair bit of rain which put paid to my plans for last weekend at the house. Sunday, it poured, so while Dave prepped the livingroom for drywall (running tubes to hide the cables for our electronics, insulating where needed, and fixing some small electical things) I was in the studio playing young grasshopper to the drywall master (my Dad).

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I was equipped with the tools and a trough of drywall compound and set to covering all the screws. Once that was done, he taught me how to bed drywall tape.

We were back at the house on Monday, to direct the digging of the internet lines! (We’ll be up and running with internet this weekend!). Before Dad got there, I put a second coat of compound over all those screws (and I’ll probably be doing a third this weekend). When he arrived, he decided my talents would be best put to use elsehwere.

I’ve mentioned before that there’s a serious coating of nicotine through the house. The kitchen was bad. The downstairs bathroom was worse… but the room that will be Dave’s studio… it was probably the worst of all. We solved most of the issue by ripping out the carpets and panelling. We plan to paint the ceiling tiles, but before we did that… I had to clean one thing. The ceiling fan.

Our original plan was just to replace it… but money is getting tight, and that won’t happen right away. I could tell the fan was coated in nicotine, but based on what I had seen in the rest of the house, I assume it was an off-white fan, with a moderate coating of the gross, yellow, sticky stuff.

But… then I got up there with the Fantastik.

Um… yeah…. it was THAT bad! the fan is actually white. Pure white. It ate up a good chunk of the day but…

Yowza! Of course, now the ceiling looks even more gross. We might get to painting it this weekend if all goes well.

While I was at it, I also scrubbed the sliding glass door (which needs to eventually be replaced) and the window. It’s amazing how bright it is in there now without nicotine blocking out the light.

This room at least, it’s really coming together. And with any luck, we can finish it up not long after we move in. (Just one more week!)

Someone is getting annoyed with the papparazzi!

As usual… I had all kinds of expectations for getting things done on the house this weekend…and as usual… they went awry!

The big plan for this weekend was to get the out door catio area rototilled, seeded, and get the fence up. The fence 100% HAS to be up before we move, because keeping Mr. Relic inside a house for more than 12 hours is not an option. And I’m not about to let him run free in a brand new town.

The area is about 300 sq. ft of lawn. Well – it was probably lawn at one time. As you know, the previous owner had a small dog. It had access to the same area (we took down the old fencng). Those of you with dogs know…. dog urine just destroys grass. I’m guessing when the dog was there, it was pretty bare.

But then the house sat empty for a while, and with not dog… the weeds moved in a took over. Dad and I cleared the area out the first weekend, and I’ve been maintaining it since to keep the weeds at bay.

But I really wanted to get all that soil turned up and so I could plant some grass seed, and create a nice lush green carpet for me and the fur babes.

Dad brought out his rototiller for me. It’s a family heirloom… seriously. My Grandpa bought it in the ’60s and it’s been going ever since. (with a little mechanical help). Dad made sure it ran before he brought it out… but…

Yeah… once out there, it just didn’t want to work.

It’s not the end of the world. It just means I will have to turn that soil up by hand. I decided that could wait until after I got the fence up. So I set to sorting that out.

All the fence materials had been delivered weeks ago. When we got them, we piled the boxes neatly in the garage. There were seven boxes in total – most of them big long boxes that contained the various posts needed. But a couple were small square boxes, containing all the hardware and bits to hold it all together.

As I was unpacking one of the smaller boxes, I noticed several large carpenter ants in the box. No biggie. But as I kept pulling more things out of the boxes… there were more ants. When I finally got to the bottom of the box, and started pulling out the last items… I discovered why.

The ants had decided the box was the perfect place to set up a nursery. Every time I removed a bar, I uncovered more eggs. I’m not particularly squeamish, so it was actually kind of neat. You could tell the eggs were all in different stages of life – some you could even see the baby ant through the casing. And every time a picked up another bar, ants would scurry in and start picking up all the eggs to get them to safety.

I felt kind of bad when I picked up the empty box and dumped all the ants and eggs on the lawn. But I had work to do… and they were in my way.

Finally, I got down to the last, smallest box. As soon as picked it up… well you know in movies, where there’s a whole pile of insects scurrying about an you can hear them? I always thought that was made up… how could those tiny little legs make that much noise…?

Let me just say… it’s true. I could hear literally hundreds (maybe even thousands) of ants scurrying about in the box. As I said, I’m not really squeamish… so I got out my phone and decided to record it for posterity. I knew it was going to be good…

If you’d like to see the video for yourself… you can see it here.

But fair warning – it’s pretty…. um…. wild.

For those who don’t want to watch it, there were about 20 times the ants and eggs in that box than there were in the other one. They all got dumped on the lawn too.

That made Mister Robin happy. He’d followed me around first thing in the morning as I mowed the lawn, pulling up worms from the grass behind me. Now I was giving him a full-on buffet!!! Soon a few othe robins came in an joined in on the feast. Ah – the circle of life!

After de-anting all my parts, I made sure everything was there, and then it was too late to actually build the fence. We were at the new house for two days after, but it rained both days. So… the catio fence STILL isn’t up and the clock is ticking! Just one weekend left. Pray for dry weather for me please! At least just one day!

Oh… and for anyone who’s wondering… I went out that night and got a couple bottles of ant spray. Normally I’m a live and let live kinda gal, but the garage is wood, and carpenter ants can be pretty destructive. And Dave wouldn’t be quite so calm about ants all in his stuff as I was. the perimeter of the building got a good spraying, and we’ll be keeping a weather eye out for any more six-legged interlopers.

I know you’re wondering… amidst all of the chaos in my life, how can I possibly have an FO to show off.

Well.. this is an FO that I didn’t finish. I just did the piecing. Mom did the quilting and binding and gave it back to me last week

And didn’t she do an amazing job?

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She made my wonky hearts look good AND brought out the best in those birds.

Now I’m counting the day until I can get my new studio get set up and back to making more tops!!!!

On top of all the fun we’ve been having, last week our washing machine decided it had washed it’s last load and decided to go up in a puff of smoke (literally – I HATE the smell of burning appliances).

I can complain really – we got it for free from Dave’s Mom last year. It replaced our previous washer, which we got for free over 15 years ago (and it was 10 years old when we got it). We’ve literally never had to buy a washing machine. (We’ve been through three dryers in that time – all three used, and only one of which we had to pay money for).

Still… it’s rather inconvenient timing.

Dave wanted to hop on Kijiji and find us a new used washer. But with only a few weeks left in the townhouse, I said – what’s the point of hauling one home, having to lug it down to the basement, hook it up, only to have to unhook it again and lug it back up the stairs in just a few weeks.

Happily, I have an awesome Mom with a HUGE washing machine, and she’s more than happy to let me use it once a week until we move.

So, last Thursday, I took my laptop (a benefit of working remotely – I can work from anywhere with internet), three loads of laundry, and headed to Mom’s.

She was still a work, so I threw a load in and settled down to get some work done. I knew the moment Mom got home!

It took a couple hours to finish all my laundry, but I didn’t have much work to do, so I soon settled in to get some knitting done on my lone sock project.

I’m now through the heel and onto the gusset. I’m very happy that I decided to keep a simple pattern. I don’t think my brain could handle anything complicated right now. Part of me is longing to cast on something super lacy – it’s probably a very good thing all the yarn is packed up and out of reach.

I’m still focused on the move, but Mom’s continuing on her Mandalas…

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And some of you may be wondering… what is she doing with these things… well…

…this one became a pillow! And I’m sure there’s more to come!

A few of you have asked how the cats are handling all the recent commotion

Of all of them, Rupert is the least perturbed.

As long as he can still get his day-long 12-hour nap, maybe a little time outside, and an evening snuggle on the couch, he’s a happy cat.

Relic is not upset, but he definitely gets annoyed on the days we go to the house.

On any day, the first thing Relic does is go outside the moment we get up. That’s usually between 8 and 9 am on a normal day. On the days we go to the house, we’re up around 5:30 a.m. He thinks that’s wonderful.

However, he’s not so thrilled that I bring him in again before we leave around 6:30 a.m. He gets to go out again as soon as we get home (usually between 6 and 7 that night), but he definitely doesn’t like being stuck in the house all day. I’m not quite sure why – he mostly just sleeps outside when he is out. But he’s a cat – he wants what he wants.

I know he’s going to VERY excited when he figures out the cat door and realizes he can go in and out as he pleases.

But Burton…. oh my poor little baby Burton.

He’s been spoiled. When I brought him home as a kitten, I was already mostly working from home – only going into the office a couple times a month. Six months later, I was working from home permanently. He has NEVER liked in when I leave the house. When I go to up to Mom’s to quilt for the day, he follows Dave around and cries.

So you can just imagine how he feels when we are both gone for hours on end. He knows something’s up when the alarm goes off at 5:30 and he tries to guilt me into staying with the saddest cat face you’ve ever seen.

And when I am home, he’s my little fluffy shadow. Either on my lap, or close by my side.

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Whether I’m working, or reading, or just chilling out.

He’s also not very happy that I won’t let him use any of the boxes lying about as scratching posts! Life is just so hard for the poor boy!

Still… just wait until he finds out he can go outside without a harness and leash!