I’ve discussed before, my struggles with starting plants from seeds. But the beauty of gardening is it’s all one big experiment. And I came across a new-to-me method I just had to try.

They are called Seed Snails. I won’t post the details of how I did it… there’s a very good post here.

For my snails, I grabbed some bubble wrap we had on hand and got rolling. In the end, I ended up planting up about nine snails. I planted sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, marigolds, and some of my yellow tomatoes and baby melons. I put them in my little portable greenhouse and hoped for the best.

I’m delighted to say, after a little more than a week… I have a whole pile of sprouts!

Pretty much everything has sprouted with the exception of the tomatoes and melons – both of those need a lot of warmth to germinate, so that’s not a huge surprise.

I am so excited to see where this little experiment is going to take us!

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly the gardens come alive.

I took this picture of the catio on April 15th.

And then this one on the 23rd. Just 8 days later.

The front gardens are a riot of colour too.

Except for the walkway garden.

It seems – other than crocuses, which are done now, I neglected to plant any other spring bulbs there. I have several allium – but they probably won’t bloom for another month. I guess I’ll have to rectify that come fall – I hope I remember!

Here’s a look at all the beauties that are shining now!

The sewing machine is generally a “no-fly” zone for the cats. That’s because, normally, I have a small ironing board and iron set up where Lemmy is standing. Cats and hot irons don’t mix.

But on the weekend, I had the iron set up on my real ironing board in the bedroom across the hall. I do this when I’m doing top assembly, because trying to iron long rows on the mini board is near impossible.

Well – as you can see, Sir Lemonhead noticed the empty space, and without so much of a by-you-leave he was up there and checking out the view from the window. The only other window on this side of the house up that high is the bathroom window – which is frosted.

Needless to say – he was riveted by the new view! I just hope he doesn’t think this is going to become a regular thing everytime I’m in the studio. The iron and board have already been put back there!

I did it! Not as quickly as I’d hoped. It took me until last night to cast off. But the Bride’s socks are done!

We hit the road sometime tomorrow (we haven’t decided how much sight-seeing we’ll do in Toronto before the event which is in the evening) so it was just in time really.

And here are the two pairs together.

Details: Alley Cat in Cat in Carrot, and Alley Cat BFL in Raisin. Basic sock math (over 64 stitches for the bride and 72 stitches for the groom), contrasting heel and toes and some graduated stripes to add interest.

Now I’ve got to get them wrapped up and do a little light packing.

It’s still too early to do much serious planting in the veg beds yet, but this weekend I got in a couple things.

My favourite nursery had some Leeks ready to plant so I thought that would be fun to try.

I’ve only eaten leeks once before. A few years back I made Dave and I a pot of Cock-a-Leekie soup for Burns Night. I will have to find some other ways to cook them if these do well.

Another thing I planted were some green onion bulbs.

I’m not a huge green onion fan but, I use them occasionally. Dave said he will find lots of uses for them.

My garlic is growing beautifully. I have shallots planted on the other half of the bed, but there’s not much to see there yet.

I’ve had chives growing in this pot for a couple years now, and it looks like I need to toss another packet of seeds in – the pot’s a little lop-sided.

My strawberries have greened up nicely – though I need to top up their soil a bit (and give the boxes a coat of paint).

In the raised greenhouse bed, the spinach is starting to get true leaves – and the lettuce has just started to sprout!

And last, I picked up some fresh oregano, though I haven’t decided where to plant it yet. I have some parsley seeds I need to start, and I was thinking of getting some other herbs as well. Any suggestions?

I used a good chunk of my weekend to work on the Bride’s socks (details coming soon), so I didn’t spend a lot of time with the tiny needle. Just enough to finish up block 13

For some reason, this one dried with a bit of a faint water mark around it. So I’ll have to see if I can get that out. But otherwise, I’m pretty happy with it.

We are headed to the big city for the weekend (Bride’s celebration is on Friday) so I’m not sure if I’ll get another block started before next TNT. I guess it depends on how hard we party!

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter. My Easter Sunday started with a lovely card, and a surprise Easter Egg hunt around my livingroom

That guy of mine is quite adorable! (I made him a turkey dinner in return).

My day finished with this big beast finally done!

I actually started working on it on Saturday. I had seven rows left to do – each getting longer than the last. I got four rows done, and on the last of the four, I realized I’d sewn it on wrong and my setting triangles didn’t line up right. The whole day had been a slog, so I decided it was time to pack it in for the day.

Sunday, after my egg hunt, and a quick trip out to vote in the advanced polls, (our country is in a Federal election right now) I got back to it. Some time away made me realize I could fix my setting triangles without having to rip and resew the whole row – which is what I thought I was going to have to do. With that done, I set to work finishing the last three rows.

That still took aaaaaaaaaaalll afternoon. The final row alone had 29 4.5 inch squares. But just before dinner it was finally done!

It finished up at about 84″ square. It contains 225 four-patches, and 196 solid blocks… then all the setting triangles, which I didn’t bother to count.

We still have to quilt it, of course, but the boys and I are soooo happy to have the sewing done! It’s time to start something new!

Long-time readers know that I have a little tradition of buying myself a pretty new dress for Easter. It stems from my childhood when I almost always got a new outfit along with my chocolate and candy. Well this year, I might have lost my mind a little.

Back in March, I decided this dress would be my Easter dress this year.

Those who know me know I love pink. And a puffy-sleeved, pink twirly dress so much the better! I arrived in late March and I fell in love with it! It’s super long, (like right to my toes) and makes me feel like and absolute princess! I WANTED MORE. But I was supposed to be curbing my spending… and other than thrifting had actually been doing ok in that department.

But….

The dress wasn’t actually pink. When it arrived it was more of a peach. Which is fine. I like peach too… but I really wanted a pink dress. Sounds like a good reason to get another one… right?

Perfect.

And of course… the site recommends other things you might like. And if I got a few more things, I could get free shipping so…

THREE more dresses of a similar style went in the basket. And I was very pleased with myself.

But then… I was waiting for them to arrive, playing around on facebook one day… and another different site flashed these in my face.

I’d need some good summer dresses too… right… summer is just around the corner… and did you notice in that second pic… THEY HAVE POCKETS!!!!!!! Yeah.. they went right into the cart… but it’s okay, because that site actually carries one of my favourite bras which I was due to replace – so it was a good reminder. Two more dresses and two new bras on the way for me!

So… I guess I better skip the chocolate this year… I overloaded on dresses!

Happy Easter!

Easter weekend is here, and the garden is performing perfectly for the holiday.

We have several clumps of giant hyacinths. A few, like the light pink ones, have multiplied beautifully and will probably be split up once they are done blooming.

The dark blue ones in the front boxes are doing nicely – though as you can see, the tulips haven’t bounced back. I’ll have to replace them with something else.

The daffodils are coming out in full force. Like the hyacinths, they’ve multiplied beautifully and we are set to have a wonderful show this spring.

As you may recall, I have a wide collection of different daffodils – including this one:

It’s called Rip Van Winkle. Like Arctic Bells (in the back of the first pic), it’s not a bi one, but it is a wonderful one!

I have Glory of the Snow in three colours, and all three have come up. They haven’t spread as much as I had hoped (Mom has a brilliant display of the blue ones each year), but I’m sure they will eventually.

The Muscari (Grape Hyacinths) are just starting to put up their buds. This pink one is in a nice sunny spot, so it’s the only one that’s fully bloomed yet. There’s lots more coming though!

And last – the Pasque flowers are just starting to bloom! How appropriate!

Wishing you all a very happy, bountiful Easter tomorrow!

This doofus gave us a bit of a scare last week. I’d noticed he was losing some weight… not necessarily a bad thing, as he is on the chonky side… but then he started vomiting and stopped eating. It was so bad, I thought we might be saying goodbye to the old man.

We got him into the vet on Friday morning. The vet thought it might be diabetes, but his blood sugar was fine. So they kept him for the afternoon to rehydrate him and take some blood and urine for further testing.

We picked him up at the end of the day and were send home with an appetite stimulant and instructions to feed him by syringe until he started eating on his own.

By Sunday, he was doing much better and was almost 100%. The vet called back with test results which were… frustrating. Everything was pretty much normal. The vet can only surmise that he had a stomach ate and stopped eating because of that. And that caused the dehydration which made his situation even worse.

While I’m thrilled it was just an upset tummy and not something more serious… it was a $750 upset tummy. I think he’s been taking lessons from Burton.