While I wasn’t able to finish all the sewing I wanted to this weekend…

Burton and I were able to dedicate our evening hours to finishing up our little sewing kitty.

It still needs to be framed of course. I have a frame that should work, I just have to dig it out of some boxes we haven’t unpacked yet. (Not much rush to unpack boxes of pictures and frames when you plan on ripping down and redoing the walls they will hang on.)

But all in all, I’m very pleased with it.

And I think Burton is too!

I was hoping that I’d have a finished top to show you today. I told Dave that I was spending at least one of the weekend days sewing. I was out in the garden all of Saturday, so that left Sunday for sewing. But as soon as I got out of bed, Dave was practically bouncing up and down… he’d found a few good scores a couple towns over on Kijiji and he needed Dory’s cargo space.

Now I’m more than happy to let him take my truck, but he refuses to drive her. I’ll detail it all in another post, but suffice it to say, I lost half of my day.

I managed to get my grey block done. It’s the final block for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt. But with half my day already eaten up, there was no time to put the top together.

Still… I decided to lay it out and get an idea of how it would all look.

Apparently word has gotten out that I give treats for posing with quilt blocks… It was impossible to get a picture with out at least one of these three jokers in it.

As you can kind of see, it’s going to be a pretty big quilt. It’s already too long to show completely along the bed. I’ll probably build it out wider, and make it close to a queen size. But that’s for another weekend…

Is it Friday yet?

This past week has been mostly cold, and very, very rainy. I’m not going to complain – it was a dry summer, so the rain is not a bad thing. As for the cold given the time of year, it’s to be expected. But when Friday dawned warm, and sunny, I just had to get outside and enjoy it.

Though the gardens are definitely on the decline, there’s still lots to be done. The Sneezeweed and Blanketflower had almost finished blooming, so I decided to take advantage of the nice weather, and get out there and clear them out, so we could move around the catio easier again.

And what a difference it makes. I didn’t pull the plants out though – just cut them back. They can winter in the catio, and I’ll move them to a better spot in the yard come spring.

And of course, that opens up some space for NEW plants! Which is a good thing because…. umm….

I might have hit the nursery on the way home from Sarnia one day last week… and stumbled across a pile of perenials on clearance. Fall is a great time to plant perennials, as they focus on putting in good roots, rather than making flowers. Hopefully as you’re reading this, I’m outside getting them planted. The nice weather is at supposed to hold until mid-week.

But all that cold and rain did put a damper on the blooms left in the garden. But there are still some brave petals.

That gorgeous clematis continues to be gorgeous with two more blooms opening. Two more are buds, and might just make it to full flower if the weather holds.

They only thing that stops the marigolds is a good hard frost. I’ve got several clumps out front and I expect they will keep going for a while more.

The snap dragons are surprisingly tough too. I have several colours, but these pink and yellow ones are probably my favourite.

This Foxglove is called Arctic Fox Rose, and it seems to be living up to it’s name, because the cold snap idn’t slow it at all.

The rest of the mums are pretty much done, but this beautiful pink one in the centre of the catio is still going strong.

Of course, those Toad Lilies just keep hopping along. Like the marigold, it takes Jack Frost a lot of work to take these down.

And the blooms aren’t the only treasures to be found in this autumn garden…

I found ANOTHER praying mantis egg case – this time in the front garden! With any luck it’s going to be mantis city here next year!

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Quilts-on-the-Go (QotG) check in, so I suppose now is as good a time as any. At the moment, I only have three quilts in the works, and one of those is my Leader/Ender project, so it doesn’t really count.

Let’s check them out.

1 LITTLE WISHES

No pictures for this one, since it hasn’t changed since the last time I talked about it. It was my previous L/E project – I made a pile of scrappy nine patches which will now be turned into the centre of star blocks. I have to make a pile of geese for those star points. Everything is cut and ready to go, I just have to find some time to devote to working on it

2 RAINBOW SCRAP CHALLENGE

You may have noticed that I didn’t post a block for September, and I haven’t said anything about October. Well it turns out that both months were repeats of previous colours – just lighter versions. Since I didn’t get picky about light vs dark in my previous blocks, that wasn’t going to work with my vision. The months of November and December were pre-determined, as follows:

• November – brown and black or block assembly
• December – multicolor or quilting

So… I decided to lay out the blocks I had, and figure out what to do. As you may recall, I was laying them out on point. And I figured if I added just two more blocks, I could get a nice design. But what colours?

In the end, I decided to go with brown and grey.

I got the brown one done in an evening earlier this week. Hopefully as you’re reading this, I’m working on the grey one, and maybe even assembling the top!

3 LEADER ENDER

I snowballed little rectangles like mad and managed to pair them all up.

And now I’m in the process of pairing all those pairs.

And once that’s done, I’ll pair again, giving me the full block. I have no idea how many I’ll end up with, because I have not been counting my rectangles at all. I’ll see how many blocks I get, and then decide if I need to make more.

And, with only three projects on the go, I technically have three project boxes open. But I’m going to see if I can get just one more top complete before I start anything new.

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight…

Can you see him???

Okay… he’s not really sleeping, and he’s more of a tiger than a lion…. (And lions don’t live in jungles, tigers do…)

But he’s very happy in his little indoor jungle.

You have probably been able to tell… I’m in a bit of a knitting funk. It took me FOREVER to finish those few baby things. And while I should be getting back to Dad’s Christmas sweater, I just wasn’t feeling it.

I thought maybe starting something new would kick start my knitting mojo, so I started something I’ve wanted to make FOREVER.

A knitted pumpkin!

The pattern is Hello Gourdgeous, and it might have actually worked to kick-start my mojo… had I not decided to knit the darn thing in cotton! While it’s going to be nice when finished, I hate knitting with cotton. I started this think early last week… it really should be done by now… but…

Still… I’ll keep stitching on it when I can. My mojo will return eventually. It always does.

This week’s walkabout is a tiny bit of a cheat post…

It’s not what I see when out walking, but what the neighbours are seeing when they walk by MY house right now.

The weather this weekend was quite lovely, so I took advantage of the weather and got my house ready for Hallowe’en. You may recall that last year, I started a small collection of skeletons. Well this year I’ve added to it, and I’ve decided what my overall theme will be…

So now I can welcome you to my Garden of Bones!!!!!

It will grow each year as I continue to add more boney characters, but for now it’s all focused around the main walkway.

The driveway garden is filled with skellies of all sorts.

As you can see, the creatures are both real and mythical, as well as prehistoric… and some are things that don’t really have skeletons, but have been “skeletonized” none-the-less.

I particularly love this mermaid skeleton I was able to get this year.

On the other side of the walkway….

I got these fun, “ground-breaker” skeletons… basically just arms, legs and a head on spikes you can pose so they look like they come out of the ground.

On one side of the stairs, I’ve got a buzzard and armadillo (it just seemed like these two needed to stick together)…

and on the other, a pair of skeleton hands reach up from the beyond…

And when you finally get to the porch…

You’re greeted by this big guy! I’m so happy to had added a full-sized skeleton this year, and he won’t be the last one. I’m hoping to snap up a couple more after Hallowe’en on sale!

But he’s not all!

There’s also some bats flying about, an a couple of skull lanterns.

But it’s not all skeletons….

Every garden needs a couple garden gnomes… and if they are zombified, so much the better!

An naturally I need a black cat…

Or two…

Dad gave me the arched kitty last year, and I’ve had the sign since we were at the townhouse. I got it from the Dollar store, and it’s held up really well over the years.

I have some lights to put up still, but Dave and I are doing a Trunk or Treat event with the Bonneville,a couple days before Hallowe’en, and we are going to use them on the car.

I will also wait to put out my pumpkins – they are styrofoam, and we get a lot of wind, so they just blow around here.

Still, I’m thrilled with my spooky little corner…. and I can’t wait until candy night!

I’m happy to say, that the background of the sewing kitty has not been a slog at all.

Burton and I worked on it every evening this weekend, and we were able to finish the whole bottom of the piece.

We were even able to get a start on the background around the machine head. One more weekend and I think this one might just be done and ready to frame!

I woke up this morning, and some how, I’ve spent 20 years with this amazing guy.

It certainly doesn’t feel like a whole two decades, but apparently it is.

You’d think for 20 years, we’d celebrate by doing something big. But we’ve been on the go so much lately, we’re actually looking forward to a nice quiet night at home. Not to mention, big really isn’t in the budget.

That’s not to say we aren’t marking the occasion. I’ve ordered a model for Dave to build (HMS Hood), and he got me a couple candles from my favourite candle place. Including this adorably devilish one…

Maybe we’ll go big for 25…. but I’m happy just to wake up each morning with Dave by my side.

Earlier this week, I told Dave we were getting up bright and early the next day to head to Chatham, a town about an hour to the southwest of us. I’d been playing on Facebook Marketplace again, and found a lady down there with a pile of Christmas Blow-Molds. You may remember from earlier this year, that I’d gotten a couple for Dad, to add to his display.

We headed out in Dory, had a lovely drive, and a lovely exchange with the lady. Apparently the blow-molds had belonged to an elderly neighbour couple. The husband used to put on a big display every year, but sadly, passed away this summer. The wife was cleaning out the house, and since she wasn’t able to assemble the display, put all the blow molds on the curb for the garbage. Thankfully, this good neighbour knew what they were worth, and told the wife she would sell them for her.

She had quite a few, and by the time we got there, several had already been sold. But I still managed to score a good haul.

But the one I’m really excited about…

Santa on his sleigh! The sleigh has one blade that needs to be reattached, but Dave’s confident he can figure out something to fix it. Apparently, it had a couple reindeer at one time, but the ones that belonged to this are long gone.

Still, I know Dad is going to be thrilled. They are his birthday present, but I’m probably going to give them to him a little early. His birthday is only a week before Christmas, so if I give them to him at the start of December, he’ll be able to include them in this year’s display.

Afterwards, Dave decided he wanted to do some thrifting… making me stop at every thrift store we came across in the area… and Chatham has a lot of thrift stores. Surprisingly, we didn’t end up buying anything (and I didn’t take any pictures). But we finished up with lunch at a great little diner in a town called Thamesville on the way home.

Dave had a double-decker bacon cheeseburger with onion rings, and I stuck with my tried and true chicken fingers.

All in all, a rather successful outing