We had our first hard frost Hallowe’en weekend so there are no more flowers left outside. Not even my little toad lilies. Then of course, the weather warmed up again – it’s supposed to go up to 18C today!

Sadly, that’s no help for the outside plants.

But inside…

• 

• 

My pink Christmas cactus has bloomed! It’s my oldest, and largest Christmas cactus, and its just covered in buds. It’s going to bloom for at least a couple of weeks.

• 

• 

I also have a white one (second oldest), and when the flowers open up entirely, they have pink centres. The yellowy-salmon one is my youngest, and favourite. I found it at Wal-Mart a couple years ago. I’d never seen that colour before and I’ve never seen it since.

Then there’s this neat plant.

• 

• 

It’s a Crossandra (aka Firecracker plant). I found it at Mom’s grocery store one day this summer when I was visiting. I’d never hear of it before and thought I’d give it at try. It had flowers on it when I got it, so I figured they die off pretty quickly, and it would be a while before I saw them again. But within a few weeks it was flowering again.

I figured I wouldn’t see flowers when I brought it in for the winter, but again I was wrong – because there they are, happily blooming away!

And the other day, I finally picked up a plant I’ve been coveting for a while…

A goldfish plant!

I bought one in 2007 as a house warming gift to myself when I first moved out on my own. At the time I had Tux and Rocky, and Rocky was especially hard on plants – the goldfish was one of the few I could have around him with no trouble.

That goldfish plant was spectacular – the flowers were yellow with beautiful red veins. Like this:

I kept it going for many year and when it finally outgrew its pot, I split it up, giving a piece to Mom and a piece to her neighbour. Apparently, it didn’t like that though, as not one of us kept our piece alive after that.

It’s been several years since, and I’ve never seen one like it, though I look every time I’m in a nursery or grocery store. I finally decided to settle of the plain orange one, though if I ever come across another red/yellow one, you can bet I’m scooping it up!

I was out inspecting what remains of the garden the other day, and noticed there were still some fall raspberries hanging in there, despite the cold. I had just put out a fresh serving of peanuts at Squirrelington’s, so I thought they might like a little sweet treat as well.

They seemed intrigued at first, but then….

“Excuse me waiter…. is this some kind of trick?”

Clearly the peanuts were much preferred.

“Tell the cook that they can take those red things right off the menu!”

Even the blue jays weren’t interested and I thought for sure they would be. They take them right off the bush all the time.

It was only when every last peanut was gone that this little guy decided they might make a nice dessert

• 

• 

“What are you looking at?”

After much discussion, Dave and I have decided a move is in our future. I won’t get into all the details, but we’ve been in this little townhouse for seven years and as much as I love my gardens, and the area of the city we live in, the universe is telling us it’s time to move on.

Now, we aren’t moving next week, or even next month… it will most likely be spring or summer 2021 (it’s got to be when I can dig up and bring along some of my garden favourites!), but we are putting the wheels in motion now, so we are ready when the time comes.

One of the big things we are doing is going through all our stuff (for just two people we have an awful lot of stuff!) and getting rid of anything we don’t need. Because, why move it if you don’t use it?

For Dave, it’s a lot of things like computer and electronic parts. For me… it’s definitely clothing and shoes.

While I haven’t been perfect at not buying any new clothes this year (Damn you Old Navy!), I have been better. And I’ve gotten much better at looking at things critically, and objectively and deciding whether I really need it or not. That has meant not much new has come into the house this year, but I needed to turn that new skill to moving some things out.

So… the other day, I emptied the closet and my two dressers and assessed everything down to the last pair of underwear.

Naturally I had a snoopervisor or two to cheer me on. Rupert was mostly wondering why his afternoon nap spot was covered in things that weren’t quilts. But his disdainful stare definitely kept me on task.

Burton wondered why I had so many skirt/pant hangers when I don’t hang my pants, and only have two skirts. I couldn’t give him a good answer, so into the out bin they went!

It took a good couple hours but I’m now happy to say, while I still have more clothes than any one person really needs, my overflowing dressers are no longer overflowing. I can get into my closet, and while there are still too many dresses, they at least have some room to breathe.

The next task was tackling my shoe collection. Those of you who have been around for a few years know just how much I love my shoes. But, since I began working from home, a lot of those beautiful pairs have been neglected. Even before COVID, Dave and I weren’t much for going out, so if I wasn’t going to the office, the shoes weren’t getting much wear.

It was definitely time to take stock… because if you barely leave the house…

• 

• 

Do you really need a pair of sparkly purple stilettos? No matter how pretty they are? And if you don’t need those, you probably don’t need the leopard print stilettos either… or really any stiletto shoe for that matter.

I did keep a couple pairs of sky-high heels – I just couldn’t bear to part with all of them. But I’m happy to say, I managed to half my shoe/boot collection. Instead of needing four shoe racks, I now only need two!

Now… I need to reassess my book collection, but I’ll save that for a rainy day!

Another Christmas present has been ticked off the Christmas list!

This one is the aptly named Moose Hat. I love making hats as presents because they are practical, almost everyone can use a good winter hat, and they knit up pretty darn quick.

I had this one done in a couple of evenings, though I could have finished it in one, I just kept getting distracted by other things (I’m looking at you facebook games!)

I normally take pictures of hats on my mannequin head, Roxy…. but I seemed to have misplaced her (she’s not exactly small, so I’m not sure how I did that…). I had to model this one myself.

It’s a little big on me, which means it should fit the recipient perfectly! Now to see what else I can mark off my list quickly…

As you know, I frequently snap up random remnants from the sale bin at Lens. (Or at least I did, before COVID… it’s very slim pickings now). One of those finds was this pretty chunk of flannel.

I love that peachy coral fabric and it reminded me quite a bit of the colours in the Rosey Posey quilt I just made. Since that quilt only used 16 of the 42 squares in the layer cake, I still had enough to make a second baby quilt.

So I got to sewing…. the dizzy daisy blocks are perfect for chain piecing. It took me no time at all to get them together.

Those stripes took a little extra care to make sure they were headed in the right direction, but they were worth it! I want to make MORE striped flowers now.

But that can wait. For now I have 16 pretty blossoms (there are two of each print)…

…all ready to be turned into a top!

Here it is… that stinky, smelly, itchy hunk of cardigan….

After a good long soak in some water and Euclan, it smells marginally better. You would not believe the colour of the water when I pulled it out – pure mud puddle. I’m starting to think the fleece wasn’t washed at all before being spun – I’ve never had soak water look like that… EVER!

Anyway, you all know how I feel about the yarn… it’s probably a good thing I don’t know where it came from – it wouldn’t be good advertising for the yarn company. The pattern however, is the East Hale cardigan. It’s a decent pattern, and just a plain, simple, grandpa style cardigan. The only mod I made was to add a button band, as the pattern is written for a zipper.

It’s hard to get a decent shot without a model, and Dave refuses to put it on (can’t say I blame him). It doesn’t look great on the hanger, so I decided to lay it out flat, and within seconds…

• 

• 

It’s no secret that this has been a favourite of every single cat in this house. There’s still several skeins of yarn left, so I may give them a really long bath, and make my furry overlords a little blanket or something.

Here’s a better look without a giant cat butt in the way

One thing is for sure, regardless of itch and smell, it’s going to be a warm garment.

Because of COVID, we won’t be seeing this friend for a while (he lives in one of the major COVID hotspots in our province), so I’ve packed it up and put it in the mail for him. It should arrive any day now.

It’s November first, so you wouldn’t expect to see much by way of garden stuff would you…. but I’ve been saving these little late-blooming beauties for you….

Long-time readers will recognize these as my Toad Lilies. I first discovered them a few years ago, and they quickly became a favourite of mine.

They are small, the blooms aren’t much bigger than a nickel. They are late-blooming – they don’t start blooming until mid-October, but keep going until we get a good frost (about the beginning of November). And they love shade! The front garden is mostly shade, so they are a nice little bit of cheer in a garden that’s tough to plant.

I’m supposed to have three varieties, but one has never bloomed. Still. The two I have are pretty enough, and always something to look forward to this time of year.

And for extra credit:

My Passion Flower was brought inside before things got too cold out, and she’s been showing her appreciation by popping out flower every other day or so!

Who says November has to be dreary?

Good day, ghouls and goblins! It’s the most wonderful day of the year.

I’ve always loved dressing up and getting candy, and giving candy out (usually while dressed up) is almost as fun. Sadly, this year we’re not around to cater to the trick-or-treaters. I’m not too upset, I’ve put together a few packages for our favourite neighbourhood kids, and I’ll give it to them the next time I see them.

Miss Wren is one of those kids. A few days before Hallowe’en, she and her mom were doing a little dry run of her costume to make sure everything fit, and she just had to come over and show me.

In truth, I think she really wanted to show Dave – she turned him into a frozen frog with her wand the minute she saw him. Her spell is”Bibbity-bobbity-boo – I froze you!”, just incase you have occasion to turn someone into a frozen frog.

While Dave was thawing, and regrowing human features, Krista and I were chatting and we noticed that the sleeves on her Magical Majesty’s gown were pretty thin! Perhaps she was the real frozen one!

I ran upstairs to my closet to see if I had something that would complement her royal wardrobe.

• 

• 

Some of you may recognize that as my Eostre shawl. Isn’t it just the perfect thing? Krista refused to take it at first, especially after I told her it was alpaca and silk. But it’s been sitting in my closet doing nothing for years. Obviously it was made for this moment!

Forget diamonds…

Kitties are a girls best friends! Especially this kitty!