A dandy little lion, among the dandelions!

I tend to tease my Mom about her obsession with the Moda Grunge line….

But I gotta admit…. it has its uses! I bought this chunk to go with a fat quarter bundle I’d ordered from MSQ last year.

I wanted something that wasn’t white, but would provide a good contrast against those darker fabrics, and still have a spacey feel. The grey Grunge stars were just the ticket.

I actually have enough fabric to get two baby quilts out of this bundle, but on this particular afternoon, I was focused on using the panel that went with this line.

I haven’t done a lot with panels (the Owl quilt being my only one), but Mom’s done a few and they are always super cute. Not to mention, it makes putting a top together that much faster.

This panel was already long enough (about 40 inches) it just needed something to make it wider. And with a space quilt what is better than STARS???

In no time, I had a pile of them. And that Grunge couldn’t be more perfect to give them some serious pop!.

A few seams later…

That’s one completed quilt top! Easy peasy!

AND, I’ve got an awesome piece for the back…

And more Grunge for the binding!!!

But before I go… Burton would like to remind you…

He’s still the cutest thing in this galaxy!

We’re still house hunting (which annoys me – we’ve bid on a few and been consistently outbid). As much as I would prefer to have a house by now, it means I still have time to dye up the rest of the yarn before we have to move.

The other day I tackled two bags (Slinky Cat, and Twisted Top Cat) with some specific projects in mind.

Up first is some Slinky for Cherry Blossom Wrapture. It will be a gift for later in the year. The light purple is a little darker than I planned, but I was having issues getting the coverage I wanted.

This darker purple was my first attempt. Much darker than I wanted. The silver was the two remaining skeins. Both of them are destined for shawls, yet to be determined.

Next up – some Twisted Top Cat for another Bogatell cardigan for myself. I really love the one I made Miss Pee, with it’s grey, and bright pops of pink – but I didn’t want something exactly the same – so I opted for Key Lime and Turquoise. Anyone who knows me knows Turquoise isn’t really a colour I gravitate to, but I figured it would look great with the green.

After dyeing that, there was still five skeins left, so I took three and one of my fav, but rarely used dyes…

Mahogany… it’s such an odd colour – kind of a pinkish brown. One day this will become a little cropped cardi to go with my many sundresses.

And with the two skeins left, I just used up some leftover dye

Both of these will become socks at some point, though probably not any time soon.

And now I’m happy to say… there’s just ONE bucket of undyed yarn left!!! The end is in sight!!!!!

With the nine-patches done and dusted and already sewn into a top, you may have guessed that I’ve started a new Leader/Ender project.

This one was inspired by a picture Mom sent me

I don’t know where it came from, so I can’t provide credit, but isn’t it cool? And done with five inch squares – of which I have a lot.

To prepare, I sorted my scrap 5″ square stash into darks and lights.

The darks are set aside for the centre squares. The lights got chopped in half so I had a series of 2.5″x5″ rectangles. Then I cut a whole whack of 1.5″ plain black squares for snowballing the corners of those rectangles.

This kind of thing is perfect for L&E projects – simple and mindless. And since each one of those rectangles gets four star points, its going to take a while. Still… you know me, I couldn’t resist working ahead a bit just to see how things would look.

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One dark 5″ square, two snowballed rectangles, and a 2.5″black square, and voila! We have our block. Add up a whole bunch of those…. and we’ll have one fabulous scrappy quilt!

Of course, I have an awful lot of rectangles to snowbal first, so this one is going to be an L&E for a good long time!

While the weather has been rather chillythis past week, the closest thing we’ve had to snow is these socks on my Candy Tuft!

The pattern is “I Smell Snow” and it’s a very simple bit of lace running down just one side of the sock. It’s the next best thing to a mindless vanilla sock, in my view.

The yarn is Knit Picks Felici in the Summer Camp colourway with Red Heart Heart and Sole in Black for heel/toe accents.

This pair is now tucked away for Miss Pee’s 18th (WTF!!!!!!) birthday in December. I’ve cast on for pair of anklets with the leftovers for Miss. Rowan. I’ve got to get a wiggle on because her birthday is only a month away, and I want them in the mail so they arrive on time. Stay tuned!

I wasn’t planning on having two quilt tops together this week, but one of my work projects got canceled and I found myself with an unexpected free afternoon.

I could have started something new but I decided to behave and finish another top. The Leader/Ender nine patches were all done and ready to go, so I only needed a few hours to get them all assembled.

You already know how I feel about nine patches, so I won’t go on and on about them. But can I take a minute to say how much I LOVE making quilts with black fabric? It’s just so…. dramatic! It makes something like a simple nine-patch modern and fresh!

As soon as it was done, you-know-who was right in there, doing quality control.

This one will be bound with some of my scrap binding (green chevrons left from the back of the Zebra quilt), but I haven’t decided on a back yet.

Believe it or not, my backing stash is starting to look a little sparse – at least the backs that enough for a large quilt (this one is 63″ x 75″-ish). Not only has COVID seen me make more quilt, but it also means I haven’t been able to get to Lens to replenish from their awesome clearance table.

And our COVID numbers are crazy bad right now (we were doing good for a while but then it all fell apart), and pretty much all non-essentials are closed up again.

I’m going to raid Mom’s stash and see what she has. If nothing strikes my fancy I may have to *gasp* order some backings!!!!!

How did that happen??? I don’t know about you, but April just flew by for me. To be fair, both work and house hunting have kept me pretty darn busy.

But I still make sure I take time to smell the flowers.

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The spring bulbs are still going nice and strong, as expected.

Most of the colour is out back, because it gets the most sun. But I did take some time last weekend to clean out the front and side gardens and make sure everything was up to snuff.

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And it is. Everything that’s supposed to be coming up is.

I moved this little Leopard’s Bane last year, and it seems to like it’s new spot. It’s about to bloom.

The black-eyed susans in the front garden have never been overly robust (again, not as much sun as they really need), but they have managed to reseed themselves – these little fuzzy leaves are coming up all over the place in that garden.

And my big, bold purple globe alium should be showing off by the end of the month! It’s always exciting to see them making their debut!

What’s promising in your garden?

The other day, neighbour Krista came over with a little present for Burton.

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A little personalized neckerchief made just for him! AND… it’s reversible!!!

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A friend of hers makes them and she was sweet enough to order one for our little Lordship.

He wore it so well, I’ve put in orders for Rupert and Relic too!

I haven’t had a lot of time to work on the Silla cardigan, but the little time I have put into it has some visible results. That’s the beauty of working with chunky yarn – those rows add up fast.

If I can carve out some time to work on it, it will be done in no time!

I have been itching to cut fabric and start a new quilt lately. It’s always a sign that I need to sit back, take a deep breath, and finish one of the quilts I already have on the go.

The Around the World quilt only needed one more quadrant assembled before I could put the top together, so I decided to tackle it first.

With the bed already made, you may be wondering where my little ginger overseer was. Don’t worry…

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He’s found a way to make a made bed work for him.

Despite his “help” the quadrant was together in no time.

I still had some time, so it was quickly added to the third quadrant.

And you can pretty much guess that I just went right ahead and added it to the first and second quadrants.

I could have left it there. With 256 HSTs, finished at 4″ each, it was already 64″ square. But you know I didn’t!

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After a thin “palette cleansing” tone-on-tone border, and a thicker final border with cheerful sunflowers, I was finally ready to call this one done!

Or at least the top, anyway. It still needs to be quilted.

I’ve got this lovely dark country green for the back, and this pretty brown/gold floral for the binding.

NOW I can go cut something new!