I do want to get back to working on my cable socks… but the single Sanderson anklet I knit up over an evening of angry security footage watching has been sitting on my office desk staring at me.

I decided it wouldn’t take too long to knit up it’s mate and get back to the cable sock after…

I’m about three quarters of the way through it! Can I finish before the weekend? Should we take bets???

I know I’ve inundated you with butterfly pics lately, but don’t worry – my little furry friends are still getting love and peanuts daily!

We’ve got a couple of young guys (born this spring) and they are very brave. They have no problem hanging out in the yard with me while I’m working away.

They are very pretty sleek little things.

They love the lattice topper the boys put on the fence – gives them a nice easy runway around the yard…

And easy access into the safety of the trees!

I made a little progress on my spooky sampler this weekend. Mr. Owl got completed as did another wee mouse. Cross stitching certainly goes slower than embroidery, but I’m enjoying being back to it. I am definitely loving the one colour – though I will add in the orange before I move onto the next section. I hope that will be this weekend, but as ever, I make no promises!

I have two quilts on my to-make list for Christmas. And ideally, I’d like to have them complete by the end of October to give me time to get to Mom’s and get them quilted.

This weekend was hot and gross again, so I decided Saturday was the perfect day to stay in and get one started. The first one I wanted to make is intended to be a summer beach/picnic quilt.

I had a layer cake of the fun, summery prints, so I started cutting up some matching solid black 10 inch squares to bang out a pile of HSTs. It went really fast, and I had them sewn, trimmed and laid out on the design bed in just a couple of hours.

Because they were big blocks, and a simple layout – I had them all sewn together with a border in just a couple more hours.

The finished size is 56″ x 65″ – perfect for spreading on the ground at a beach or in the park. I have to dig into the stash to see what I have for a back for it. I may have to buy something but we’ll see. Either way, I’m happy to have this one ready to quilt – it will be knocked off the to-do list in no time!

Because I’m not….

It’s been an amazing summer for butterflies this year. I try to get out a couple times a day with the camera. I spend maybe 20 minutes at a time, and usually come in with multple pics of at least 5 types of butterflies.

These little Northern Crescents have been amazingly abundant this year. They are EVERYwhere.

They are almost as abundant as the White Cabbage Butterflies.

At any given time, I’d say there are 10-15 White Cabbages flitting about the yard.

While I’ve seen fewer monarch caterpillars than last year, there’s definitely more monarchs

This is the first time I’ve been able to capture a pair mating!

We’ve had quite a few Emperor butterflies… this one could be a Hackberry or a Tawny – but I can’t tell unless he opens his wings (Hackberries are orange, while tawnies are beige)

The Red Spotted Purples really love the Black Knight Butterfly bush.

But the White Profusion bush will do too!

These little Skippers are all over the place too! I’ve learned that their host plant it grass (just about any type of grass apparently) – so it’s no surprise to find them in a backyard!

And of course, the Clearwing Moths always delight me!

I mean… how could they not???

I’ve been harvesting more carrots. Half this bunch was cooked up with some bbq pork chops and the other half was eaten raw by Dave (his favourite way to eat carrots). I do have to be careful when I harvest them though…

We’ve got a new bunch of swallowtail caterpillars munching away on the greens.

I am excited to finally announce, there WILL be pumpkins!!! They are still very small, but it’s nice to see them at all.

Something weird is going on in my cucumber patch – I got several of these odd cucumbers from one vine. I did get three normal-looking, normal-sized cucumbers too (I just forgot to take a picture).

My beans are actually starting to look a little better – and I’ve even got three beans so far!

The Yellow pear tomatoes are finally ripening and they do look pretty good if I do say so myself! And I’m especially pleased as I’ve finally successfully grown a tomato plant from seed!

And the autumn crop of raspberries aren’t far off! I still have a pile of the earlier ones in the freezer waiting to be made into jam!

It’s so nice to see things doing so well in the garden!

Furby continues his mission to supervise everything that goes on in my garden.

Not only is it hot and disgustingly humid again… but now we’re not even getting the rain. Rain has been on the lighter side this summer – but we were getting it regularly. But not now. We’ve had a sprinkle here and there but not even enough to refresh the parched ground.

I generally don’t water the flower beds. I’ve tried to plant things that can hold their own. But when we don’t get rain for over a week, I’ve got to help them out a little.

The signs of stress are just starting to show – mostly on the coneflowers.

They are still going strong, but their colours fade fast. Interestingly, some of the fancy hybrids seem to be doing better, which isn’t always the case.

I planted some zinnias over in Potager Parlour, specifically for cutting.

But they look so cheerful and pretty there, I can’t bring myself to cut them.

I’ve got some more that I’ve just planted out here and there in the garden, but it will be a while before they start to bloom. They should provide nice colour through fall though.

The cosmos are just getting started. The one on the right is a new one – it’s called Seashell Cosmos and you can see it has pretty double, scalloped petals.

The Black-Eyed Susans look amazing this year. And I’ve got clumps throughout the gardens.

The perennial mums are starting to show off. These ones are a little different than the ones you get at the grocery store (though I have them too). These ones are taller – on par with the coneflowers, and bloom earlier. The plants also live longer – the grocery store ones generally only live three years or so.

Globe Thistles are among my favourite flowers. And as you can see, I have them in blue and white. The leaves are on the prickly side, but not as bad as the purple thistle. And they turn into seed heads the birds absolutely love. And before that the blooms are a pollinator favourite!

Last, I’ll leave you with my favourite fun fact about sunflowers. Solitary bees often use them a beds for the night. It’s not uncommon to find a bee or three curled up on a bloom at dusk, or early in the morning.

One of my goals every year is to get pictures of these guys!

It’s a Snowberry Clearwing moth. I showed you the caterpillar the other day – now here is what that caterpillar turns into.

I’ve seen them described as “Flying Party Shrimp in a Velvet Jumpsuit” and I can’t think of anything more apt!

They are quite tricky to get pictures of. The move VERY, very fast. And they don’t sit still at all like the butterflies do. These pics were captured by holding the shutter button down and hoping for the best. I probably trashed 80% of the photos I took.

As long as I get a few good pics, I’m happy.

We also get Hummingbird Clearwing moths (they are a little bigger and have pale green heads), but I’ve only seen them in the evenings this year so no pics In fact, Lemmy caught one a few weeks ago – thankfully I got it away from him before he destroyed it. (But Monarch murder count is up to six)

Now this beauty isn’t a Monarch. It’s a Viceroy. You can tell by the line through the bottom wing. I have seen them here before, but not for a couple of years, and never in great numbers.

I hope they become more regular visitors.

And last, I’ll leave you with one of my favourites! It’s been so nice to see it around often this summer.

I showed you a look at my new stitching project last week…

I’ve actually had the pattern for several months. I went looking for a Quaker-style sampler ages ago. I’ve seen a few of you do them, and I just love the simplicity of a single colour project. Well this popped up in my search, and you know… I just HAD to have it. It’s not exactly a Quaker… but it’s a definitely me! If you look closely you’ll see it’s actually two colours – black with a little orange.

The original pattern was done on 14 count aida, but I really liked the look of my butterflies done on 18 ct, so I decided to stick with that.

Burton and Lemmy helped me work on it several evenings over vacation.

We made good progress. I’d say we’re about 50% done the first section. But I’ve got socks to knit, so stitching will once again be relegated to weekend only. That should still give me enough time to get it done by the spooky season!