What a weekend of drama!

I don’t believe I mentioned it, but a few months back, I got a new car. Well not really a new car – we just decided to keep Dave’s old car (when he got a slightly newer one), and it should be enough for me to run errands in without too much trouble or cost.

But it is an old car – a 2002 Buick Regal (aka grandpa-mobile), with eleventy billion miles on it. Things are going to break occasionally. And Saturday afternoon, as I left Mom’s, I noticed a bad smell and a weird rubbing noise.

Thinking it was a stuck caliper (a problem I’ve run into on a few other cars) I got back to Mom’s and called Dave. He had just enough time to get to the parts store before it closed, pick up a new one.

Only when he got up to Mom’s and got the tire off.. it wasn’t the caliper… the spring had sheared off.  And the jagged edge was wearing a groove on the inside of the tire (accounting for the noise and the smell).

Luckily, we had an extra tire for the car, but we didn’t have a spare spring!

So we came home with the plan to get the spring the next day, and head back up to Mom’s to install it.

Not long after we got home… I heard water running onto the floor… our 40 gallon fish tank had sprung several leaks, all at once!

We spent the next hour bailing the tank, swapping out buckets that were catching the leak water, getting the fish into a spare tank, and mopping up the aftermath! What a day.

When it rains it pours (apparently literally in our case!)

Luckily, Sunday’s installation went smoothly, and while Dave was turning a wrench, I was clicking my needles.  And another fair entry is done!

For the Children’s Slipper category, I made these cute little sleepy lions.  When I decided to enter the slipper category, I went on the hunt for a good, quick pattern. I found these.

Sadly, the pattern no longer exists at that link, so I used my favourite Family Slipper pattern, and winged the rest. I decided sleepy eyes would be cuter (not to mention easier) than open ones.

The yarn is some mystery yarn from my stash. I know that it’s got alpaca in it, and I’m pretty sure it came from Mom. But the label is long gone, and I can’t remember anything else about it. But it’s nice buttery yellow colour was purrfect for these dreamy cats.

Although the heat has given no let up, it is definitely beginning to feel like we’re on the far side of summer.

The blackberries are ripening. I get a handful or more every day, and it’s looking like I’ll have enough to make blackberry jam this year.

The Sedums and Stonecrops are starring to bloom – a sure sign of late summer. This one is one of my new ones and it’s giving the front garden a lovely touch of bright pink.

The roses are starting to bloom again. They always seem to take a bit of a break mid summer then come back mid-August and show off until mid-fall. This beauty is, of couse, my wonderful Blue Girl.

I mentioned before that I’d need to bring my Burgundy Shamrock in for the winter. I found this pretty little planter at a local florist. It should keep it nice and safe inside.

My Toadlilies have also started to bloom.  In the past, they’ve always bloomed in September, but this is a new one, so maybe it blooms earlier. Either way, I love these little guys.

Of all the sunflower seeds I planted this year, I only got one to grow. (Other than my surprise Sunflower). This is a dwarf sunflower, it’s only about two feet tall. But there’s one problem… It was suppose to be crimson… not yellow. But oh well… it’s still cheery.

The grocery stores have started putting out their Mums, and I couldn’t resist bringing this one home. There’s just something about the combination of pink and yellow that makes me smile!

 

 

It took me a while, but I finally settled on a pattern for a baby cardigan for the fair.

The pattern is Dora and I’ve got a good start on it. It’s knit from the bottom up, and I’ve got the sleeves done. The above pic is the is the bottom of the body and I’ve got just a couple more inches before I join everything up and start on the yoke.

The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill SuperSock Select in “Caribou Creek”. It was sent to me by the lovely Wyoming Breezes as part of a swap this summer. I love using sock yarn for baby knits, and I think this one works perfect with the pattern.

 

 

Thank you for all your kind words about Lady. It seems like there’s been a lot of loss here the last couple of years, but that’s just because our pets were all around the same age. The only ones left of the old crew are Mom’s Tibbi (he’s 14), and our Peno (she’s 15). Both are in decent health, so hopefully we won’t be saying goodbye any time soon.

We’ve all had a good cry about Lady, and no doubt will cry a little bit more. For my part, I just try to focus on the now. And right now, I have a little bit of sweetness to share with you.

Unlike Tux and Rocky, the cats we have now are not really snugglers. They get along (some better than others), but they never really snuggle up together. So I was surprised to witness this scene the other day…

If pets have one downside, it’s that they just don’t live as long as us.

Sadly, yesterday we had to say goodbye to Lady Dog.

While we are all very sad,  she had a good long life (especially for a Lab) and was spoiled rotten every day of it.

I don’t have any pictures of her as a puppy, but she was a cute little thing. Dad got her not long after they moved from the city. We’d had dogs when I was a kid and we lived in the country,  but the city house of my teens didn’t have a yard big enough for a big dog (we like bigs dogs, and we cannot lie), so I think he was thrilled to have a yard big enough, and couldn’t wait to have a doggo running around again.

As a puppy, she put teeth marks in almost every single shoe I owned (but oddly, no one elses), and once memorably ate a DVD remote.  But she was a good dog, smart as a whip (though stubborn as a mule!)

She loved water. You couldn’t keep her out of it. Whether it was a lake, a pond, a creek, a ditch, or even just a muddy puddle… if she could roll in it, she would.

Dad had a plastic wading pool that we’d fill for her on hot days in the summer. When not in use, he kept it behind the shed. But Lady knew it was there, and all you had to say was “Go get your pool!” and she’d drag it out so you could fill it up for her.

I used to joke that she wasn’t the family pet – she was my replacement after I moved out (and I occasionally referred to her as my little sister). She was definitely a family member, involved in almost everything Mom and Dad did. When they’d get drive-thru, Lady always got her own hamburger, when they got fish and chips, a piece was ordered just for Lady.

She was an excellent road trip companion.

She even attended Ron and Jenn’s wedding, dressed in a green polkadot bandana to match Miss Rowan and Miss Paisley.

Miss Paisley and Lady were almost the same age, and the pair grew up together.

When Jem came along, Lady was a touch jealous at first.

But it didn’t take her long to figure out that she now had someone else to play with.

And soon they were best buds.

You will be very much missed you Sassy-Lassy-Pain-in-the-Assy. You were the best little sister a girl could ask for!

 

 

 

 

 

When it comes to quilting, one of the things I really need to improve on is planning. I love whipping together blocks, but I’m not great with planning how they will all layout.  As I whipped through my log cabin blocks, it became apparent that I was definitely going to have to start planning how I wanted it to come together.

So I figured out how many blocks I would need to cover my bed, then I booted up excel and started planning my layout.

From there I was able to figure out how many blocks of each colour I would need. Of course then I stumbled across another problem…

I didn’t have enough scraps of a few of the colours. Luckily, I have a mother who quilts, and isn’t opposed to me raiding her scrap bin.

After that I was back in business. I still have some green and purple blocks to make, but I couldn’t resist laying out what I had to get a sense of what it would look like in real life…

I love it! I’m calling this one ‘Cabins at Rainbow Camp’, in honour of a place my Dad used to go Moose hunting.

You may remember the Bernat Blanket  yarn that Yarn Canada was so nice to send me a few months back….

I’d started a simple feather and fan baby blanket with it… but I’d forgotten how much I hate knitting with chenille.

All those sticky, stiff K2TOGs were driving me crazy, and I knew if I wanted to have a baby blanket to enter into the fair, I’d have to do something drastic.

So I frogged it.

And I cast on again…

This time for my Bias Garter Afghan. And it’s going MUCH better. While I might not like knitting with the yarn, I love the feel of it knit up. And I do love those pretty stripes.

It’s a super-bulky yarn, so if I keep at it, this should just fly off the needles. Here’s hoping…

While I am trying  to focus on my fair entries, Mom finished the quilting on Pigs in a Blanket, so I took some time out to tack down the binding.

Since the blocks were already made, this was a very simple quilt to put together.

It’s a nice little square quilt, perfect for a baby.

The fabric on the back matches one of the fabrics in the blocks. And as you can see, Mom did some pretty little loop-dee-loops for the quilting. I think it works perfect on this quilt.

And now it’s been packed up and sent off to Natalie, where hopefully it will raise a pretty penny for the horde of kittens she has right now!

And

I didn’t mention it, but I’ve been on vacation this past week. It’s been just a little staycation – and sadly one too hot and humid to get up to to much trouble, but I was able to devote a good many hours to fair knitting.

As such, I was able to bang out and entry the the Baby Hat and Bootie Category.

I figured since it’s a fall fair, it wouldn’t hurt to have a bit of a fall theme. So I dug up some perfect orange Stray Cat. I couldn’t find quite the pumpkin hat pattern I wanted, so I ended up making my own (I’ll release it soon)

I used a simple garter rib to create a nice plump pumpkin texture and I’m thrilled with the results.

My Baby Janes pattern was perfect for the booties, and some sweet little orange flower buttons finish it all off.

Hopefully this little pumpkin brings home a ribbon!

 

 

 

 

As you know, my main goal in planting my gardens was to attract butterflies.  And it does just that. There’s never any shortage of White Cabbage Butterflies…

At any time, there’s a least one flitting around, sometimes two or three.

But we don’t have a great variety of other butterflies, as I’d hoped. I’ve only seen one Yellow Swallowtail.

The only other butterfly I’ve seen on a regular basis is the Monarch. I see one bopping through the gardens almost every day. But getting them on film has proved difficult. they have been very shy this year. Every time I get outside with the camera, they fly away.

That is, until the other day.

This guy was quite content to let me get close and snap away.  If you look closely, his wings aren’t overly vibrant, and they were a touch on the translucent side, so I think he was on his last legs.

But regardless,  I was glad I was able to finally get a few decent shots. While the flowers themselves are their own reward, the butterflies they bring in are icing on a wonderful, colourful cake!