In good news, I finished the great floss reorganization
The bad news is, I need a bigger organizer. There’s no room for all those greys at the top. And it doesn’t include the 16 or so colours I’m using on the butterfly. They are pulled out and in my project bag.
And speaking of that butterfly…
I’ve actually made progress on it! I’ve only gotten through six of the colours, but if you squint just right, you can get a sense of the shape of the wings. There’s still a long way to go, but it’s nice to finally see some progress on it. I can’t wait to get to the outlining – this is one where the outlining is really going to make it shine.
If there’s one thing I’m learning, it’s that when Dave wants to go “antiquing” but I’m not in the mood, I really should just give in. Because that’s when I’m going to find awesome stuff.
Let me set the scene for you.
It was Friday afternoon. I got out of work early to run some errands, and wanted to get back to the house before dinner to sneak in a little sewing before I had to make dinner.
Dave came along, because he needed to make a few stops too. It was pouring rain, and I could feel the beginnings of a weather migraine. I wanted to do nothing more then finish my tasks and get home.
Dave wanted to check out ALL the used/thrift shops along our way. I agreed to go to one. It’s one of our favourites – the little second hand place in Strathroy.
It has a small outdoor area where they keep garden stuff/windows/stone building supplies, etc. Despite the rain, I headed out for a quick look.
And there it was…
I have been looking for a small rattan/wicker conversation set for the catio porch ever since I got my rattan lounger. I have a metal patio table and chairs on the porch presently, but I wanted something that would match the lounger and rocking chair.
If you’ve ever looked at rattan furniture on Kijiji/Marketplace, you’ll know, despite the fact that most of it is old and well used – it retains a fair bit of value. So I was super excited when I saw the price for the set was just $50. I can’t even get a cheap bistro set from Walmart for that!
But it gets better. When I got to the counter, she told me all their outdoor stuff was 50% off!!! That’s right… I got the whole set for just $25!!!! Can you believe it? I still can’t.
I have to move some things around on the porch (and finish painting the darn space!) and find anothe spot for my metal table and chairs, but someone has already approved the new addition.
Continuing the highs and lows of the food-growing adventure:
The beans appear to be doing quite well. The smaller ones are “Tender Beans”, the bigger ones are “Long Beans”. At least I think they are because I got my packages mixed up and I’m not 100% sure they are labelled right.
There are MORE carrot sprouts!!! It’s not many though, so I sowed some more seeds. I can always thin if I get too many.
And behold!!! One tiny squash sprout. And I think there’s another one coming up too… though it might just be a sprouted maple key, so I’m trying not to get too excited. I’ve sowed a few more squash seeds too, because I’d really like four plants if I can manage it.
The grape tomatoes are doing well – nice and lush and bushy.
The peas are exceedingly happy with their new rigging and I think they are growing even faster than before.
Still no signs of life from the chives or catnip. And though the strawberries still look excessively sad, I did get one ripe berry
It wasn’t the sweetest, but the hot dry start to the season didn’t help. I definitely need some new plants.
And mother nature saw fit to bless me with another gift.
If google is correct, this spikey plant growing up in the pussywillows is a black raspberry (a native plant, probably pooped out by a bird). If it is, I’ll relocate it (and the two others around the shed) to a better spot with my other raspberries.
The first day of summer has come and gone (as has the majority of June!!!), so we are truly in the realm of the summer garden.
The pink clematis has faded away, leaving only leaves and these pretty little seed heads.
I love plants like this that leave behind something cool as they ready for the next stage. And while pink is already contemplating the future, white is continuing to dazzle
I suspect they will start to fade soon, but the cause has already been taken up by purple!
The flowers are about half the size of pink and white, but there are A LOT more of them. It’s wonderful watching the clematis doing so well here after so many years of murdering it at the townhouse.
Both the pale pink and dark purple delphinium are doing beautiful (with the exception of the pink ones Lemmy broke in the catio)
And the blue ones have finally bloomed.
Blue Delphiniums are my favourite, though these are a little different than the amazing ones I had at the townhouse. These ones are a touch less brilliant, though they are much taller.
Summer is the time of the Tickseed (Coreopsis), and I have several different types. I hope to add more in the future.
The trip to Home Depot saw me add this Balloon Flower to my collection. Mom has a beautiful blurple one she’s kept going for years. This one is a pretty pale pink, which I’ve never seen before!
The new shade garden is doing quite nicely with both annuals and perennials enjoying the cooler conditions.
I bought a new Blanket Flower (Left) thinking it was different to the one I already had. And it is, just not in the way I expected. It has a tiny bit more red than the one I already had (I thought it was a lot more red), but it’s also a smaller, more compact version. I think it’s the same as they type that I had at the townhouse. The one on the right gets crazy big – I had to take it out of the catio because it almost took over last summer.
I have another one that should be a lot more different. It’s called Apricot and it’s either dark yellow or light orange – it’s hard to tell on the label and it hasn’t bloomed yet.
The snapdragons that re-seed/re-grew are covered in flowers.
I ended up with three clumps of these, which was a nice surprise.
The swamp milkweed is getting ready to bloom.
My orange milkweed didn’t come back this year, but I have five or six common milkweed plants coming up again. The common milkweed seeded itself last year, and now it’s multiplying, which is wonderful.
And speaking of native plants – the Harebell (campanula) is just a mess of purple and white flowers. In othe native news, the Lobelia, Cardinal Flower, Mexican Hat, Smooth Aster and New England Aster have all come back and are doing well, though I don’t expect blooms on them for a while yet.
And though the roses got their own show last week, I’ll leave you with Chicago Peace
She’s such a show off. I had her at the townhouse, but she unexpectedly died the year before we moved. I’m thrilled to have her in the garden again!
First… sorry the link isn’t working on yesterday’s post. I drove by to get the mail and the house has a sold sign on it already. I’m not surprised. It was listed at $299,000 and properties under $400,000 are few and far between around here, so they get snapped up quick!
Continuing this week’s theme of too much to do and no time to do it… I went and joined another quilt-a-long because I’m an idiot.
I wasn’t going to join because of the aforementioned lack of time, but then people started posting their blocks in Pat Sloan’s Facebook group. And the second week was a cat block!!!
That one is Mom’s block! How could I not join in now???? I didn’t actually have much Hallowe’en fabric (well… I did, but it’s leftover Kitty Corn, and I have somewhat of a plan for it.). So Burton stepped in, and picked something out from Missouri Star Quilts (we needed a new bolt of solid black fabric anyway, so might as well make use of that flat fee shipping!)
The fabric line is Hey Bootiful.
We got the fat quarter bundle and a couple yards of two of the fabrics to go a long with it. The mystery project is just over 30″ so no doubt I’ll want to make it bigger somehow.
And that’s bad enough… then we were were visiting Mom and Dad on Saturday, Mom surprised me with this bundle of Owl-o-Ween
If it looks a bit familiar, it from the same designer as Kitty Corn. The colours/prints all work together and I can mix and match it with Kitty Corn if I want.
But now it looks like Lemmy wants to get in on the action! So two mystery quilts???? Anyone got a time machine!?!?!?
And no… I’m not actually walking again. Are you kidding???… I don’t have time for walking right now!!!
But I wanted to share with you another house that went up for sale. This one is a couple blocks from us, and it’s one of the same style (pre all the weird additions we have, of course)
They’ve done what Dave would love to do with ours, and put a covered porch across the front.
And I’m not going to lie, I would love to have a space like that. But we’d have to relocate our gas metre, and I can only imagine what what would cost!
But it’s the inside of the house that gets me really excited. Like ours, the house is a bit of a time warp, and it’s apparent not much has been done update wise. But unlike our house, and like the other house I showed you a while back… this one still has CHARACTER!!!
I would kill for a front door with sidelights like that!!!! Now I don’t know how original it is to the house (most of the houses like ours were originally built in the very early 1900s (ours was 1907). I suspect it was added later than that… but still it adds, rather than takes away (like so much in our version of the house!)
But just look at all that beautiful baseboard and trim!!! And I adore those old vents! Those would be keepers for sure if this was my house.
I did have a little giggle about the wallpaper in that livingroom. We pulled the exact same stuff out of the upper livingroom here! And I think that might be the same carpet too!
Unlike our house, this one doesn’t have a pile of crazy additions. Just an addition on the back for the kitchen. So there’s only one bathroom, and just two bedrooms (we have two full bathrooms and five bedrooms). But I am a little jealous of this floor in one of the bedrooms.
I’m guessing it’s linoleum or vinyl. But one thing is for sure… you do NOT see floors like that any more. And I’m not going to lie… if this was my house, and it was in decent shape, I’d be tempted to keep it!
It’s so neat to be able to step back in time a little, and see what our house might have looked like before the crazy carpenters got their hands on it and went to town!
If you want to “walk through” this house in more detail than I’ve given here…. the listing is here (at least until it sells)
You’re gonna get a little de ja vu here… today’s post, just like yesterday’s… is mostly about me NOT accomplishing things!
I did not cross a stitch all weekend.
Saturday is no surprise as we were barely home. But Sunday, during those hours when it was too hot to work outside, I did plan to get some little x’s in.
But first, I needed to clean up the area around my chair. Like many of you, I like to craft (mostly knitting and cross-stitching) while I watch (listen to) TV. That means the area around my chair tends to become a bit of an impromptu creative space … i.e. MESS.
I really needed to clean it up before I did anything else. And in the course of cleaning I decided I really should reorganize my floss box.
I had a pile of new floss that needed to be wound on bobbins.
And while it was a great thing to work on while watching TV (the new episode of the Grand Tour)… it was far more time consuming than I thought it would be. I only got about half that pile wound before it was time to make dinner.
And then of course, after dinner, I was outside rigging up my vegetables.
So… not only did I not accomplish any stitches… I didn’t even finish my reorganization! I really need more hours in a day lately!
Maybe next week you’ll see some progress on that butterfly… but at the rate things are going… don’t hold your breath!
I’m probably starting to sound like a broken record… but I just do not have enough time to do all I want to lately!!!
This weekend was another whirlwind. Saturday, Dave and I were up early and off on a road trip. Dad found me a sweet deal on a rifle I’ve wanted for a while so we were headed to his house to pick it up. Of course, a visit with Mom and Dad is never short so we were gone all day.
That left just Sunday for all the things I wanted to accomplish outside. I even got up early to make sure I had enough time to get it all done. (Which is quite an accomplishment for me – my idea of a perfect morning is rolling out of bed around 10 am)
My first task was to get the trellis lines strung up for my peas and my cucumbers. The first part – drilling holes for the eye screws, went mostly fine. I got screws on the pea box in, and realized I didn’t have enough screws for the cucumber box. No biggie – we could pop out to the hardware store in the next town over as soon as I got the pea strings done.
But as I started stringing, I realized I needed at least one cross beam a little lower on the back of the garden box. I needed wood, as well as eye screws.
So we hopped in the truck and headed out… only to realize, it was Sunday and it was too early… the local hardware store wasn’t open yet. But Home Depot was…. so our trip got a little longer as we continued onto Sarnia (40 minute drive). We got the wood, the screws and a new plant for the garden (because I have a serious plant addiction, and there is no cure).
And by the time that was done, we had to get lunch… so you can guess what time we got home to finally get back to work… so much for my morning!
Dave cut the wood for me, and I got it painted. But being the afternoon, it was now too hot to get much more done outside until the sun moved behind the garage (after dinner).
When it finally did, I was back at it.
It was a bit of a tedious (and tangle-prone) process, but I strung heavy cotton thread through the eyes and around the cross beams on the back of the box.
The peas have been growing like weeds and were in desperate need of the framework. They seem quite happy to have the support now.
And they have plenty of space to climb, because they are probably less than half grown.
The cucumbers don’t need the same support quite yet, as they are still very small.
But it’s there and ready when they are.
Dave said it looked like rigging on a ship… and he’s not entirely wrong! Personally, I can’t wait to see it covered in green leaves and vines!
After finishing that, there was only time to water, and another day was gone. And I still have so much to do… But let’s not dwell on that…
Elsewhere in Edible Alley…
I finally have a carrot sprout!!!! Last week was considerably cooler and wetter and it seemed it was just enough to get this little guy going. I was starting to think one carrot was all I was going to get, but as I was watering , I noticed several more little bit of green. It’s supposed to be hotter this week, but hopefully not too hot for these wee guys and they can really get a foothold.
Sadly, I still have no sprouts in the squash, catnip, or chives. I’ve got another packet of seeds for all of them, and I’m going to reseed this week and keep my fingers crossed (that was one of the things on my Sunday to-do list that didn’t get done)
My strawberries aren’t looking great either…. and I’m thinking I may need to get some new plants. I almost bought some when we were at Home Depot, but changed my mind. I may have to go back for them.
But I hate to close on a down note so…
A few more of my asparagus roots decided to sprout! Aren’t they just the most adorable little spears?!? Even though I won’t get to harvest these for a couple of years, I really am thrilled with how well they did so far.
Though, since the rain came, the weather has been on the cooler side, so even though we’re halfway through June, only two of my roses are blooming fully.
The first, of course, is Chrysler Imperial, which I already showed
She’s still suffering a little from the sawfly larvae, though I sprayed the plant down with insecticidal soap, and it did make a bit of a dent. My cell phone has a hard time capturing her really rich red, so I’m going to have to try with my fancy camera.
The second is Good as Gold.
It’s a beautiful yellow rose that starts out a deep gold/orange and lightens as it blooms. The flowers are smaller and less fragrant than Chrysler Imperial, but they are no less impressive.
This pretty little pink one is New Dawn
It’s a climbing rose I bought last year to climb up the catio fencing. It didn’t get one flower last year, but this year it’s covered in buds and several are opening up into these beautiful pale pink blooms! And it’s only halfway up the fence – it’s only going to get better each year.
Another climbing rose is Eden.
It’s one of the new ones I bought to climb up the arbour out front. It’s still quite short, but it’s got several buds on it. The first bloom is a little bug-eaten in spots, but you can see it’s a beautiful white with delicate rosey edges
And Caroline de Monaco is starting her show too.
She’s a beautiful creamy white – just classic!
There’s still Chicago Peace and Quicksilver – both have buds, but none close to blooming. And… I might have picked up a new one at Walmart Friday night – her name is Prairie Rose, and she’s a beautiful mid-pink. (Now I just have to find a spot for her)
I love all the flowers in my garden, but roses will always be among my most special.
Wandering Cat Studio 