The next quilt in the quilt parade is one I’m keeping… and I think the boys knew it!
They gave lots of extra “help” with the binding.
This one is my Christmas quilt (because believe it or not, I didn’t already have one). It used the fabric line :Merry Little Kittens, which is made by the same company that made the fabric for my Halloween quilt, and it features the same vintage-style kitties.
This one is quite colourful with red, green, aqua and pink throughout the fabrics.
I love using black in Christmas quilts. It’s like Christmas lights shining bright at night!
For the back I found a nice cozy flannel covered in snowflakes, and a candy-cane inspired striped binding wraps it all up!
Now I’m not rushing Christmas by any means… but I do look forward to snuggling up with this one in December!
As you know, I was at Mom’s for most of the weekend. In that time I got three of my four tops quilted (I left Relic’s Wildflowers with her to do some ruler quilting)
The first is one of the quilts that will be a Christmas present.
Isn’t it beautiful. And the pattern was so simple. But those gorgeous prints just come together to create something magical.
On the back, there’s that stunning butterfly floral, amping up the coziness!
And now this one is tucked away until December! I can’t wait to gift it!
One thing the last of rain hasn’t affected is the raspberries.
It’s raspberry overload over here. We get this many just about every day. So there’s only one thing to do…
Make jam! It always amazes me how quickly jam comes together. I can do a batch in under an hour. And most of the dishes go in the dishwasher, so clean-up is a breeze.
And the end result is seven jars of summer perfection!
While the flowers are still going strong, things are drawing closed in the veg beds.
I’m still pulling carrots – I’ve got about 1/4 of the bed left..
The first few years I grew carrots, all were pretty long and straight. I don’t know if it’s the lack of rain this year but…
We’ve started to get some rather interesting ones.
Throught this last week I’ve harvested a lot of the last bits of veg
I picked the last pepper. None of them got any bigger than that, but Dave said they tasted great. On the right is the ONLY zucchini I got. I kept waiting for it to get a little bigger, but it never did so I picked it.
This year wasn’t the best in the garden – probably due to the drier-than-normal summer. I could have watered more, but I guess I was just too used to the beds taking care of themselves in previous years.
Next weekend I’ll be pulling out old plants and wrapping most of it up for the coming winter. I’ll do a proper wrap up post then
Over in the corner of our diningroom is a small metal table. Dave calls this my “Rage Crafting” table.
Dave calls it “Rage Crafting” because many of these projects (especially the ones that require me to paint details) usually end up with me swearing at some point. They usually work out fine in the end, but in the middle it can seem a little dicey, especially if you’re on the outside just listening to me… well… rage.
Anyway, as you can see, the table is a little over-loaded. It’s been collecting projects/pieces of projects for months. I decided Sunday, after my chores were done, was a good day to try to get at least one of them done.
I bought this pair of fabulous skellies from Michael’s, as soon as they put all their Halloween stuff on Buy One Get One Free. You may recall, I painted a craft like this two years ago, and was pleased with how it turned out. I feel in love with these two when I saw them online.
In the end, I was only able to get Lady Skellington done.
Or mostly done anyway. I want to get some metalic paint pens and some plastic gems/cabochons to dress up that frame a bit.
So I’ll wait until I have them to tackle Lord Skellington.
On the weekend I shared a pic of the Goldfinches that have been visiting the garden on the daily.
They absolutely fascinate me. They aren’t big birds… but they still look like they should be too heavy to hang off the stems and heads of the sunflowers.
But they aren’t!
The other day, there were several of these Ruby Meadowhawks flying about the yard.
I even captured a pair of them mating!
I caught this lovely lady admiring herself in the reflection on our big front window.
And it’s proved to be a popular resting spot. I got this shot from inside a couple days later.
All this critter watching this summer has been exhausting! I think this guy has the right idea!
My fluffy handsome overseer was firmly in place over the weekend.
That means I made some very good progress on the stitching.
We’ve got all our crows, a couple of mice and the fantastic boots of two witches.
Now I’m off to Mom’s this weekend, so there will be no stitching, and no Tiny Needle Tuesday next week. But I’ll be back at it for the first weekend in October!
Dave’s been a little on the grumpy side lately, and our regular thrifting trips didn’t seem to be lifting his spirits. I needed something a little more drastic.
So Saturday morning, first thing, I told him to get dress – we were going on an adventure! And we headed to one of our favourite places!
Of course, it’s not just the goats he loves – but the parrots too.
This is Blue and Scarlet – and I think they liked Dave as much as he liked them. He had them both right over to him in seconds. Long time readers may recall that Dave had a small parrot through his teens/twenties named Jack.
I took the fancy camera this time to get some really good pics but it’s tricky with the lighting and cages. I did get these awesome ones of Blue though. Just look at that beak!
Last year when we went, they had two Lemurs. I assume they still do. But one must have been off sleeping somewhere and the one that was out wasn’t feeling super social. This is the best pic I got. Oh well – Lemurs need time off too.
They had some beautiful fancy chickens.
And an army of odd-looking guinea fowl.
The llamas were feeling especially chill. That one on the left was having llama dreams… his feet kicking while he slept.
They seemed to have less animals than last year – but they did still have my favourite lizard
I do love a Bearded Dragon and this guy was a very handsome specimen.
After our time in the petting zoo, we headed in and checked out the arcade. Dave somehow talked me into playing a first-person shooter zombie game (definitely not my favourite type of game)…. and I managed to live a few minutes longer than he did, which was pretty funny.
And of course, before we left, I picked up a few new plant babies… but I’ll share those another day!
Wandering Cat Studio 