FIrst, thank-you for all the lovely comments about our new home. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we are looking foward to it.

Now to the crafts!

I have a bad habit of breaking sock needles (Mostly from sitting/stepping on them). I really prefer the Knit Picks wooden needles for their great points. It wasn’t too bad when I could just pop over to Lens and pick up a new set whenever I broke too many.

Unfortunately, with our COVID numbers still through the roof, all our non-essential stores are curbside pick up only. And calling and ordering, then driving over to pick them up… it’s just too much effort for me!

So I decided to do a Knit Picks order. Can you see where this is going?????

Yes… I ordered more yarn.

Not a lot. Just enough to get me free shipping. They only had a few colours of Felici left – and though they were on clearance, none tickled my fancy.

So I decided to give their Stroll a try. I’ve seen many of you knit with it, and haven’t heard any complaints. The leftmost one is Yeti – light and dark grey with a touch of aqua… which I thought would be nice for man socks. The next is Koi Pond, which several of you have used, and I’ve always admired. Next is Gumball – a fun rainbow skein to make up for the Rainbow Felici that got lost. Last is another skein of Static, in the Seascape colourway. Probably destined for more man socks at some point.

Now, this yarn was ordered BEFORE we put the offer in on the house, so this will definitely be my last yarn purchase for a good long while. It’s not like I’m going to run out of yarn – I still have a whole bucket to dye up!

First, let me wish a Happy Mother’s Day to my partner in crime (and knitting and quilting and everything crafty….) my Mom!!!!!

I get a giggle out of this picture of us every time I see it! Oh those carefree early ’80s where you smoked with a baby in your lap! She quit smoking when I was about six or seven, so there aren’t actually many pictures of her with a cigarette. It’s almost shocking to see now.

This is how I see her most often now

And as you know, we spend a lot of time together. So it’s with mixed emotions that I make this announcement. As you may have guessed from the title… we are MOVING!!!!

Yes. We finally won a bid on a house, and the financing approval went through late last week!!!!

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These are the pictures from the real estate listing. I’ll get better pictures when we get the keys.

It’s a good solid house with all the important things up-to-date. (Roof, foundation, furnace, electrical). The inside however….

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…is stuck in a bit of a time warp. From the looks of things, it hasn’t had any updates since 1960 or so. It’s all wallpaper and some of the most hideous carpet I’ve ever seen. Seriously, these pictures doe not show just how bad the carpet is – especially in a couple of those bedrooms.

It does however have FIVE bedrooms (Finally SEPARATE office and sewing studio for me!!!). It also has two full baths – one on each floor.

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The kitchen, while dated, is actually in pretty good shape. The floors and counters are in such good shape, it will probably be one of the last things we update

It has a crap tonne of of cupboard space. In fact, the whole house has a tonne of storage – there are cupboards and closets EVERYWHERE!

But what excites me the most….

See that little red area off the back of the house? That’s a completely screened in porch. There’s already a dog door from the kitchen to it. And that fenced in area….? Well one of our first priorities is putting cat proof fencing around it. The boys and I are finally going to have a catio space big enough for us all to enjoy!!!!

And as excited as we are – there are some downsides. It’s in a little town two hours from where we live now. Which means it’s 2.5 hours from Mom. We are still going to keep the quilting business going, but it means I’ll probably make a trip to quilt once a month instead of once a week. I’ll likely stay the weekend to get much time with them (and the long arm- lol) as possible!

It also means I have to say goodbye to all my backyard friends here.

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I’m sure we’ll make friends with the new patrons, but I’m really going to miss these guys!

As I said, we get the place June 1, but we keep the townhouse until July 31, so we have time to go in and do some updates before we have to move. (We won’t do the whole house at once). It’s a lot of work ahead of us, but I’m not sure what it will mean for the blog. I’ll still post – it might just not be every day, so don’t fret if I’m silent for a day or two!

As May settles in the daffodils are fading, but the tulips are taking their place.

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I have the traditional red-with-black-centre ones. But I also have another red – it’s actually a little darker (though you can’t tell in the pictures) but it has a distinct while outline on the tops of the petals, and a pale yellow centre. It’s quite pretty.

I also have this beautiful pale peach/pink. They came from bulbs from the dollar store. The picture on the package was actually much darker, but I love this pale version.

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And there are a few others mixed in here and there. My multi-coloured parrot tulips (far right) are just starting to bloom. The come a little later, but they are pretty magnificent, being taller and frillier than other tulips.

My Bleeding Heart is blooming. I was a little worried about this one. I planted it last year, and it wasn’t overly robust to begin with. And, Burton took a liking to laying on it. I wasn’t sure it was strong enough to survive but it’s doing quite well.

The Pasque flower is just going gangbusters now. I had a red one too, but it looks like it didn’t survive the great garden revamp last year. I knew I’d lose a few things.

Speaking of gangbusters, check out the Candytuft. I wish is bloomed all summer long because it’s amazing. It will last about a month, but after that it’s just little green shrub-like plant for the rest of the summer. Oh well – it’s wonderful while it’s going.

My strawberries are starting too flower too. I won’t actually get any berries – the buns and mice will get to them before I do, but I still enjoy them. They are ever-bearing so they flower and fruit on and off, right until fall.

The Lily-of-the-valley won’t be much longer to sweet smelling little bell flowers. They are definitely one of my favourites.

Out front, the Leopard’s Bane has bloomed! I think I’ve finally found the right spot for it – this is the best it’s ever looked!

And last…

The truly best thing in the garden is our favourite garden cat!

A dandy little lion, among the dandelions!

I tend to tease my Mom about her obsession with the Moda Grunge line….

But I gotta admit…. it has its uses! I bought this chunk to go with a fat quarter bundle I’d ordered from MSQ last year.

I wanted something that wasn’t white, but would provide a good contrast against those darker fabrics, and still have a spacey feel. The grey Grunge stars were just the ticket.

I actually have enough fabric to get two baby quilts out of this bundle, but on this particular afternoon, I was focused on using the panel that went with this line.

I haven’t done a lot with panels (the Owl quilt being my only one), but Mom’s done a few and they are always super cute. Not to mention, it makes putting a top together that much faster.

This panel was already long enough (about 40 inches) it just needed something to make it wider. And with a space quilt what is better than STARS???

In no time, I had a pile of them. And that Grunge couldn’t be more perfect to give them some serious pop!.

A few seams later…

That’s one completed quilt top! Easy peasy!

AND, I’ve got an awesome piece for the back…

And more Grunge for the binding!!!

But before I go… Burton would like to remind you…

He’s still the cutest thing in this galaxy!

We’re still house hunting (which annoys me – we’ve bid on a few and been consistently outbid). As much as I would prefer to have a house by now, it means I still have time to dye up the rest of the yarn before we have to move.

The other day I tackled two bags (Slinky Cat, and Twisted Top Cat) with some specific projects in mind.

Up first is some Slinky for Cherry Blossom Wrapture. It will be a gift for later in the year. The light purple is a little darker than I planned, but I was having issues getting the coverage I wanted.

This darker purple was my first attempt. Much darker than I wanted. The silver was the two remaining skeins. Both of them are destined for shawls, yet to be determined.

Next up – some Twisted Top Cat for another Bogatell cardigan for myself. I really love the one I made Miss Pee, with it’s grey, and bright pops of pink – but I didn’t want something exactly the same – so I opted for Key Lime and Turquoise. Anyone who knows me knows Turquoise isn’t really a colour I gravitate to, but I figured it would look great with the green.

After dyeing that, there was still five skeins left, so I took three and one of my fav, but rarely used dyes…

Mahogany… it’s such an odd colour – kind of a pinkish brown. One day this will become a little cropped cardi to go with my many sundresses.

And with the two skeins left, I just used up some leftover dye

Both of these will become socks at some point, though probably not any time soon.

And now I’m happy to say… there’s just ONE bucket of undyed yarn left!!! The end is in sight!!!!!

With the nine-patches done and dusted and already sewn into a top, you may have guessed that I’ve started a new Leader/Ender project.

This one was inspired by a picture Mom sent me

I don’t know where it came from, so I can’t provide credit, but isn’t it cool? And done with five inch squares – of which I have a lot.

To prepare, I sorted my scrap 5″ square stash into darks and lights.

The darks are set aside for the centre squares. The lights got chopped in half so I had a series of 2.5″x5″ rectangles. Then I cut a whole whack of 1.5″ plain black squares for snowballing the corners of those rectangles.

This kind of thing is perfect for L&E projects – simple and mindless. And since each one of those rectangles gets four star points, its going to take a while. Still… you know me, I couldn’t resist working ahead a bit just to see how things would look.

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One dark 5″ square, two snowballed rectangles, and a 2.5″black square, and voila! We have our block. Add up a whole bunch of those…. and we’ll have one fabulous scrappy quilt!

Of course, I have an awful lot of rectangles to snowbal first, so this one is going to be an L&E for a good long time!

While the weather has been rather chillythis past week, the closest thing we’ve had to snow is these socks on my Candy Tuft!

The pattern is “I Smell Snow” and it’s a very simple bit of lace running down just one side of the sock. It’s the next best thing to a mindless vanilla sock, in my view.

The yarn is Knit Picks Felici in the Summer Camp colourway with Red Heart Heart and Sole in Black for heel/toe accents.

This pair is now tucked away for Miss Pee’s 18th (WTF!!!!!!) birthday in December. I’ve cast on for pair of anklets with the leftovers for Miss. Rowan. I’ve got to get a wiggle on because her birthday is only a month away, and I want them in the mail so they arrive on time. Stay tuned!

I wasn’t planning on having two quilt tops together this week, but one of my work projects got canceled and I found myself with an unexpected free afternoon.

I could have started something new but I decided to behave and finish another top. The Leader/Ender nine patches were all done and ready to go, so I only needed a few hours to get them all assembled.

You already know how I feel about nine patches, so I won’t go on and on about them. But can I take a minute to say how much I LOVE making quilts with black fabric? It’s just so…. dramatic! It makes something like a simple nine-patch modern and fresh!

As soon as it was done, you-know-who was right in there, doing quality control.

This one will be bound with some of my scrap binding (green chevrons left from the back of the Zebra quilt), but I haven’t decided on a back yet.

Believe it or not, my backing stash is starting to look a little sparse – at least the backs that enough for a large quilt (this one is 63″ x 75″-ish). Not only has COVID seen me make more quilt, but it also means I haven’t been able to get to Lens to replenish from their awesome clearance table.

And our COVID numbers are crazy bad right now (we were doing good for a while but then it all fell apart), and pretty much all non-essentials are closed up again.

I’m going to raid Mom’s stash and see what she has. If nothing strikes my fancy I may have to *gasp* order some backings!!!!!

How did that happen??? I don’t know about you, but April just flew by for me. To be fair, both work and house hunting have kept me pretty darn busy.

But I still make sure I take time to smell the flowers.

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The spring bulbs are still going nice and strong, as expected.

Most of the colour is out back, because it gets the most sun. But I did take some time last weekend to clean out the front and side gardens and make sure everything was up to snuff.

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And it is. Everything that’s supposed to be coming up is.

I moved this little Leopard’s Bane last year, and it seems to like it’s new spot. It’s about to bloom.

The black-eyed susans in the front garden have never been overly robust (again, not as much sun as they really need), but they have managed to reseed themselves – these little fuzzy leaves are coming up all over the place in that garden.

And my big, bold purple globe alium should be showing off by the end of the month! It’s always exciting to see them making their debut!

What’s promising in your garden?