While I have completed a couple quilts, it doesn’t feel like I’ve done much sewing for the past few weeks. I didn’t get into the studio at all over vacation, and the first week was busy, as it usually is after a week away.

Still, I managed to carve out an afternoon to finish the last few blocks for Time to Sew.

The finished top will have sashing and cornerstones between the blocks, but this was the only way I could get all the blocks to fit on the design bed. Mom’s already got her top together, so I’ve got to get cutting so  I can catch up.

As I was finishing those up, I also finished the last of the Leader & Ender Nine Patches.

They will also have sashing, but I wanted to see them all together. I just love a good rainbow! Now that the blocks are completed, it moves from L&E rotation to regular rotation. It also needs a name… any suggestions?

It also means that I have to find a new L&E project. I still have a lot of 2.5 inch squares left, so I’m going to do another style of nine patch (and not colour coordinated), but I need to cut some white 2.5 inch squares before I start on it.

In fact… all my QotGs are at a cutting stage:

• Time to Sew – Need to cut sashing and cornerstones
• Happy Camper – You haven’t seen this one yet, because I’m still cutting pieces for it. But I will unveil it soon.
• Honey Patch – This too needs sashing and cornerstones cut.
• Scrappy rainbow nine patch – MORE sashing to be cut.
• Leader and Ender quilt – I’ve got about eleventy billion 2.5 inch squares to cut. Luckily, I don’t have to do them all at once.

 

It’s July and the lilies are in bloom. There’s more to come, but I’m crushing on those pretty pink ones. This is the first year they’ve bloomed  (planted last year) and they are just gorgeous!

I’m still waiting on my special purple ones, but the orange day lilies are blooming left  and right.

They just scream “summer” in my books.

Like the day lilies, nothing says summer like a daisy explosion!

The pink Bee Balm has bloomed. It’s so bright and happy – it always reminds me of fireworks!

Tickseed is another happy summer flower. It’s a beautiful pop of yellow in the sidewalk garden.

It won’t be long before Dave is munching on ripe cherry tomatoes. Ah, summer!

One of the things I love about summer is all the wonderful things with wings that come and visit my little yard…

Like these entwined White Cabbage butterflies who took a wee break on the raspberries.

The moths are welcome to stay as long as they stay out of the house and out of my yarn!

Our tree out front is a Bass Wood and it’s blooming. It’s full of these little flowers and the bees are just loving it.

There’s always a bumbler or two.

The finches are still stopping by to check in on us.

And this group of characters is always hanging about!

There’s no doubt about it, summer flies in our corner of the the world!

 

As you know, I’m the kind of person that thinks every cat is wonderful and beautiful… but even I have to admit…

Rupert is an exceptionally magnificent little beastie. I’m not sure if it’s his colouring – all warm and caramel, or if I’m just partial to gingers.

But there’s just something about this saucy little guy that’s just so striking!

We all knew it couldn’t last…. all that knitting monogamy. It came to and end on the weekend. While I could have taken Wren’s cardigan with me for travel knitting, I wanted something a little smaller.

The pattern is Switcheroo and the yarn is Twinkle Cat (colour is Briar Patch). The pattern is simple, and it creates a lovely little bit of lace.

This pair is also for Christmas, and I’m debating whether I’ll carry that lace down the foot or just leave it on the leg…. but I’ve got a few more inches before I need to decide.

Earlier this week, I mentioned that I was away this weekend. The course I was attending was only 15 minutes from my parents’, so I crashed at their place for the weekend to save myself some travel time.

But the course didn’t start until 6pm on Friday, so I took the opportunity to do some quilting before I went…

As a result, Sprites’ Garden is complete. It’s not a very big quilt (38″ square) so it didn’t take long.

It was a fun, and quite frugal quilt to make. The main blocks were a charm pack I got as a free gift with a MSQ order. The purple solid was a clearance bin find.

As was the backing…. a cute chunk of flannel for just $5! The binding was part of a mystery grab bag order from MSQ… and it just happened to match one of the fabrics in the charm pack! I did have to add a couple 5″ squares to have enough for the pattern, but they were all leftovers from my stash.

There’s no babies on the immediate horizon, so this will be tucked away for now. It was made for the pure joy of it, and I’m sure the right recipient will come along eventually!

Since I’ve been making such good progress on my holiday knitting, I figured I might as well keep at it with my next cast on.

Miss Wren is the only little one left on my gift list… all my other kids are tweens or teens. I’m still debating on whether I’ll make her another sun dress like last year (I do not enjoy making ruffles, regardless how cute the result). But I definitely wanted to make her a new cardigan, so I scoured Ravelry. I wanted something similar to her Old Shale Cardigan – something with classic appeal. I found it in the Baby Fir Jacket.

Then I went stash diving for the perfect yarn.

I have a fair bit of Fat Cat left from when we closed the shop. Wren’s mom loves bright colours, so I thought this bold Violet would be perfect. The pattern actually calls for sport-weight, and Fat Cat is DK. But the pattern only goes up to two years. Wren will be two-and-a-half by Christmas, so I’m hoping a slightly heavier yarn on a larger needle will give it just enough wiggle room for a growing girl.

I’m already past the underarms, and so far it’s looking good. I don’t think this will be on the needles long. I wonder if I can finish all my Christmas knitting by the end of summer….

I was away at a course all weekend, and I was so consumed with it that I completely forgot that yesterday was Burton’s gotcha day! I only realized it when the memory came up in my Facebook feed!

This is what he looked like when he first arrived. Just a cute little ball of fluff with a mischief streak a mile wide.

Two years later, not much has changed, he’s just bigger and fluffier.

and maybe just a teeny bit cuter!

Here we are, another Sunday, another trip through the garden….

As ever, my garden is continually surprising me. You’ll recall that I have both pink (Candy Mountain) and peach (Peach Dalmation) Foxglove…

Well now I have white too. This little one is growing right beside the pink one.  It threw me for a loop until I read that foxgloves are kind of like Labradors… they carry all the colour genes in their seeds, so apparently you can get any colour from the seeds of the mother plant. I’m not going to complain.. the more the merrier, I say!

Another surprise were the pink Armeria blooming again. I moved them to a different spot this year (they get a little more sun) and I guess they are happy! They’ve never bloomed twice before.

After years of just yellow and white blooms on the sedums in the tree garden, suddenly we have pink! But I’m not complaining. They are lovely.

My Bachelor Buttons have started to bloom. This plant makes the little green sweat bees very happy! It makes me happy too because it’s such a good bloomer!

Another incredible bloomer is my Blanket Flower. I had three of these, but two didn’t make it through winter. I’m so glad this one did! It’s such a happy plant that blooms all summer long!

The daisies are actually a couple of weeks late this year. But despite their tardiness, I think this is the best they’ve ever looked! No bug problems, and they are standing nice and tall.

Speaking of daisies… this little Gerbera Daisy is one from a couple years ago. Gerberas are annuals here, so I put this one in a pot and brought it in for the winter. It really thins out inside but it doesn’t die off. Come spring, I put it back outside, it leafs out all over again and boom! Big, beautiful blooms!

Last year, my poor Red Hot Poker got crowded out by a Coneflower. I thinned and moved the Coneflower this year, and as you can see, the Poker is very happy. This variation is called “Traffic lights” and I think you can see why.

July is lily season and mine are not disappointing! These ones are out front. They aren’t at all what I ordered (there was a mix-up last year), but they are nice none-the-less.

The Day Lilies are also in bloom – the first to open is the small and compact Stella d’Oro. She’s a lily you often see in commercial landscaping… she is very easy to care for and blooms repeatedly.  I have several colours of Day Lilies and I really hope the purple ones make their debut this year.

Both my pink and purple Lavender plants have bloomed.

As have the hollyhocks, which are HUGE this year. They are looking great and showing no sign of the rusty mold that plagued them last year.

I don’t have much by way of food plants, but they are all doing great. I’ve been enjoying fresh strawberries almost every day. In another month or so I’ll be doing the same with raspberries and black berries.

Next week should see new blooms on the Susans, Delphinium, Liatris, Coneflowers and Tickseed, There’s always something exciting happening in my little gardens.

f you’ve not a fan of spiders, you might want to skip this post…

 

Back in May, I spotted this teeny, tiny Orchard Orb Weaver in the back garden.

Over the years, I’ve had many spider “pets”. As a child, my favourites were the big yellow garden spiders, and as long as their webs weren’t in bothersome places, my Dad always helped me make sure the spiders did well. We’d watch them all summer long as the caught food in the web and grew and grew.

This particular spider had built her web across the pathway between my red and yellow irises, but there is another way around, so I’ve been careful not to walk through her home, and I water gently on that side of the garden. These past few months I’ve enjoyed checking in on her each day.

She grew quite quickly, and she has the most amazing colour. Bright green legs and a gorgeous body with orange, green, yellow and black.

Despite how the pictures make it seem, she’s actually not very big. Her leg span is not much bigger than a dime

A few weeks back, I noticed a second web, right beside hers, with a second, smaller occupant of the same breed.

By the next day, the interloper was gone. I wasn’t sure if she ate him or just sent him on his way.

Either way, she was all on her own, sunning herself while she awaited her next meal.

Happily, I got to see that too! Here she is mumching on a fresh, juicy blow fly!

A few days later, I noticed two more webs, each with their own spider – one in the raspberries, and one by Blue Girl.

They aren’t quite as big as the first spider, but they are beautiful…

Sparkling little jewels hanging by silver threads!