As you may recall, I left the Chickadee Round Robin Quilt with Mom to work her stitchy magic on. And Magic she worked!

Feathers and whirls and swirls everywhere! She brought out the best in every block and really made use of the blank spaces.

This one was another fun stay-at-home-round-robin challenge. I was limited in that I only had a small collection of fat quarters and the panel to work with. But I love how it turned out with its partial borders.

And Mom’s quilting really takes it up a notch!

It finished up at about 57″ x 59″ – so a nice little lap quilt. Perfect for any cozy nest! It’s in the shop now if you want to feather your nest with it!

April’s garden is a fickle garden. One day there are bees and sunshine aplenty like you saw yesterday… and then bam!

Mother Nature hits you with an ice storm. That was Wednesday morning. By afternoon it had turned to regular rain. But not before it did a number on the first daffodils that bloomed.

Happily they recovered nicely in the warmth Thursday brought and by Friday we’re bright and cheery.

I’m actually lying – these big guys out front weren’t the first daffodils to bloom. These were.

These little guys are tiny – not much bigger than the crocuses. They are my Arctic Bells Daffodils, and always the first to bloom. I’ve got several little clumps of them and I should dig them up to and move them to better spots when they are done blooming. I didn’t realize how small they were when I planted them and you have to go looking for a couple of the clumps each spring. Still – they make me smile. I’m also smiling about this.

My Forsythia is blooming. I’ve had it for a couple years now but this is the first year it’s bloomed. Last summer, after the guys built the new fence at the back of the yard, I moved it from its previous spot to in front of the fence. It gets a lot more sun here than it did at the corner of the shed. I think that’s the secret to this year’s final success. I also relocated a double blooming white lilac to the fence as well – it was getting severely shaded by the raspberries. But we’ll have to wait a bit to see the results from that one. It’s still very small – though it does have leaf buds so at least it survived the winter.

Elsewhere, new crocuses pop up daily.

This one is the Whale Shark giant crocus. It’s a pretty two-tone purple. I’ve got quite a few hyacinths coming along too.

So far Lemmy seems to be letting the ones in the Catio live – unlike last year.

I was thrilled to discover my pink Hellebore bloomed this year. It didn’t last year and I was a little worried it was just going to die off. It’s got a couple more buds too. I had a white one as well but I’m not seeing any sign of it. It may still show up when I finally clear away the leaves (that will be another week or two from now)

And last, I once again filled my boxes with forced spring plants from the grocery store (blue hyacinths and red tulips). The boxes are a little muddy because I planted them up yesterday when it was pouring rain. I had to get them in though – I made the mistake of holding off last year and the hyacinths bloomed and got floppy before I could get them in. It might have been a bit messy, but this way they will be better acclimatized to the weather.

How’s your April garden doing?

One of the most notable things about the town we live in is that it’s home to one of the provinces biggest honey producers. That means we have a lot of honey bees out and about.

On the warm days, my gardens are alive with them.

Dave and I argue a little about the bees. While he understands their importance, he’s not fond of them. He puts them all on par with any other yellow/black striped fliers. Wasps, hornets, bees… it’s all the same to him.

But I’ve always had a live and let live relationship with the little buzzers. Even the wasps. They don’t bother me and I don’t bother them. (Though if a wasp starts making a nest inside my porch – he gets shot with the wasp spray)

Personally, I’ve always found the honey bees to be exceptionally gentle. At least in the garden.

There have been many times when the pussywillows were alive with dozens upon dozens of bees.

I can walk right in and get up close and personal with my camera with no issues. They buzz about their business like I’m not even there.

In fact, last year was the first year I’d ever been stung by a bee. It happened twice. The first time, I was gathering up leaves from the gourds and squashes that I’d cut off. There must have been a poor bee somewhere in a pile. When I gathered them all up, I pulled them to my chest, and squished the wee lady against my arm – and boy did she let me know!

The second time was a few months later, I was walking across the grass in my flipflops. It was a little overdue for a cut, and concealed in the blades, was another poor bee. When I stepped far too close (pretty much on top of her), she stung me – right in the arch of my foot.

Both times, the stings were technically my fault… I just didn’t know the bees were there.

Hopefully, this year, I’ll step and work more carefully, and the bees and I can have a peaceful, fruitful season.

It’s been a busy week!

We’ve earned our rest!

I’ve still got a couple larger quilt tops on the go, but this past weekend I needed a quick hit. Something new. Something fast. Something fun.

Burton and I pulled something I’ve had on the “to make” list for quite a while. This fun penguin panel with some coordinating fat eights.

The panel was large – a full yard – so it wasn’t going to take much to make a decent sized baby blanket. Which was good, because 6 fat eights really don’t go that far.

It didn’t take long for us to formulate a plan and several hours later, we had a completed baby quilt top.

It’s nothing fancy as you can see – just partial borders of flying geese. I really do love this technique for framing panels. It doesn’t matter if you do one, two, or three partial borders. It always looks great! I got lucky and had the perfect shade of solid grey in the stash for the background. (This one is a little lighter than the grey I used on the chickadees).

I’ve got some adorable, almost perfectly matching flannel for the back. And some wee stars for the binding. It will be a while before you see this one quilted – there’s no plans to head to Mom’s until I have at least a few more tops finished.

Although it was a mostly rainy weekend here, it was a pretty warm one. I took advantage of a few hours between the storms to do a small expansion on the veg garden.

It’s nothing major – I just extended Potager Parlour a few more feet to line up with the edge of the shed.

It gave me a little more square footage for a few more containers including the raised greenouse bed I showed you a few weeks back.

I still have to get some mulch to cover the landscape fabric (so it matches the rest of the veg garden), and some bricks to raise the other containers up off the ground. But I was able to plant up the greenhouse bed.

It’s not huge, but it’s got six short rows of seeds – three of lettuce, and three of spinach. And I hope this new bed is the key to being successful with both.

It will still be several weeks before I have anything really exciting going on in the veg beds.

But my garlic is sprouting nicely!

And…

I think I’ve mostly decided what plants will go where throughout the beds. I have six containers unspoken for so I have to decide it I want to get some more seeds… or just plant them up with some flowers for cutting.

Since I was working on the Groom’s sock on Saturday, I only had a few hours on Sunday to work on block 11

I almost got it finished…. there’s just a few French knots and some small stitches attached to them. This one will definitely be completed this coming weekend. And maybe even Block 12 too!

Welll… I guess I should have as much faith in myself as you guys do.

Several of you said I could complete the Groom’s socks by the end of the week and you were right…

I got the heel and the bulk of the foot done Wednesday and Thursday night, and Saturday morning I finished up the stripes and the toes!

For a quick recap. Yarn: Alley Cat in Carrot, and Alley Cat BFL in Raisin. Worked over 72 stitches with basic sock math for heel and toe. I added the graduated stripes at top and bottom just to give the socks a little more pizzazz.

I’m very pleased to have them done, and even more pleased that I got a good start on the bride’s.

As you can see, I’m reversing the colours for some matchy-non-matchy fun! Twenty-four days left to get this pair done!

Have you guys heard of the Porch Goose? If not, click this link.

Every since we bought the house, I’ve wanted a porch goose. But did you know porch geese are hella expensive??? At least around here – good luck finding a concrete one for under $150. Even the plastic ones on Amazon are $100.

Now I can justify a lot of things… but spending $100 or more dollars on something I’m going to dress up and put on my porch…? Just couldn’t do it.

So imagine my delight, when after almost four years… Dave and I were out thrifting at the ReStore and we came across not one… but FOUR porch geese. Solid concrete and $15 each!!! I literally squealed in delight. Dave was very confused. Apparently, I’d kept my porch geese desires to myself all these years and he had no idea what I was talking about. When I explained it to him, he thought I was joking until the cashier confirmed it was an actual thing people did.

But that’s enough explanation… you want to see her, right?

Isn’t she magnificent??? Well…. she will be. As you can see, she’s in need of a bit of a make-over. But she is solid concrete! And she is HEAVY! Dave was buying a set of speakers and had his hands full, so I had to carry her through the store and to the jeep.

Once the weather warms up enough to paint outside, she’ll be getting a glow up. In the mean time, I’ll be taking her measurements so I can make her first summer outfit!

Despite what the calendar and my little garden flag say…. Mother Nature flipped the switch on us and we’ve been lucky to get a few degrees above freezing this past week.

All the crocuses are staying tight closed up! The only thing new that’s bloomed is a small clump of Glory of the snow.

And like the crocuses, it’s been staying tightly closed. I have several little clumps of it, in several different colours. Like the crocuses, it seems to be starting to multiply.

Speaking of multiplying, I’ve got several clumps of daffodils that I should probably break up this year after they are done flowering. So many of them have really expanded – I love it!

And last…

The pink pussywillow is starting to get its little pollen blobs… it would be covered in bees… if it was warm enough for bees to fly…

Sigh… maybe next week will be warmer.