Burton would like to remind everyone who’s King of the Castle around here.

Lemmy begs to differ…

Oh dear….

Looks like we’ve got a face-off!

I was hoping to have one finished bride sock to show you today.

I don’t. But I’m close. I’m only about an inch from starting the stripes before the toe. In fact, I’ll probably finish it up tonight while Dave is teaching and I have several quiet hours to myself. That will leave me a full two weeks to finish the second sock!

As it always is this time of year, the itch to get outside in the garden is strong. But it poured on Saturday, so other than planting up my front porch boxes, it was a solid indoor day.

Time to tackle some sewing. I really want to start a new project for myself (dive into those Tabby Road Fabrics), but I feel I need to wrap up at least one WIP before I do.

Remember this one…

It’s my Leader/Ender four patches on point. As you can see, I’d only got so far with it. That’s the thing about an on point layout – each of those rows get longer and longer and take that much more time. I needed to dedicate a day to it and really push through.

When I started this, I didn’t really plan out how big it would be or how many blocks I would need. I just made a bunch of four patches and stopped when I had a pile. So to build the quilt, I make two rows at a time, then sew one to each side. That way I can build toward the centre and all will be even without running out of blocks.

After several hours, I had four more rows added. (Two each side)

I still had about and hour and a half before dinner, so I decided to do two more rows (one for each side)

And you can see, those six rows really filled the gap. I could do one more row (it has to be an odd number for the blocks to line up correctly) and call it a day. That would give me a nice sized lap quilt (about 60″ x 70″).

But… I have enough four patches left for at seven more rows. That should make it a really good-sized quilt – maybe even enough for a double bed.

Sadly, that means I need at least one more weekend. Tabby Road will just have to wait.

The weekend saw me finish block 11

And block 12

And get a start on block 13

All in all, a really productive stitching weekend. Part of me would like to start working on these throughout the week to get them done (seven left). Maybe when the wedding socks are done.

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.