I am terribly behind on the Stay-At-Home-Round-Robin. All the prompts have been released, but still only had the first two done (which I combined into one round)

The next prompt was stars. After much pondering, Burton and I decide to go with Friendship Stars because they were easy to make at six inches, the same size as the previous round’s blocks.

We made 18 in total, and arranged then in the same way as the previous round….

Just on the opposite corners.

Here’s a closer look…

Now there are three prompts left: Slice Block, Kite Block, and Half Log block. To be honest, I’m not really feeling any of those, so I’m thinking I might go rogue for the next round…

It appears the boys are all for that idea!

I have two tiny-needle blocks to show you today!

First, I finally got the dissolvable pattern off Block Six and gave it a good ironing…

And then I finished up all the darn knots on Block 7 and gave it the same treatment.

Then it was time to prep Block 8 and get it in the hoop. I really hoped they were going to give me a break on French knots…

But… apparently not! Oh well, as least it’s not as many as Block Seven!

I did it!

I pushed through and got the ribbed socks complete! For a refresher, they were knit with Farmer’s Daughter Sock Squad. The colour was bitterroot, with a coordinating mini skein that I used for the heels and toes. The yarn was a prize/gift from Bridget over at Ravell’d Sleave. Thank you Bridget! It was a lovely yarn to knit with. I just wish I hadn’t chosen to so so much darn ribbing! Lol.

But it’s done now, and I get to cast on something new. And I’m giving myself a bit of a challenge. My dear friend Aneesha got married in a private little ceremony last month and I’m thrilled for her.

The newly weds are having a little celebration with friends in late April. She’s said no gifts, but you know I have to make something. I thought it would be fun to make them a pair of non-matchy matching socks! I dug through my stash and came up with a couple skeins I think echo the colours in her dress/flowers (at least as close as I can get)

Now the challenge is – can I get TWO pairs of socks… one of them man-sized… done before the party in late April! I think I can, I think I can!

Who’s that hiding in the butterfly bush?

It’s Mr. Cardinal! We have several red birds that visit our yard, but I think the cardinals might be my favourite.

The just stand out so much in the cold, wintery landscape. I find the cardinals here are quite shy. At the townhouse, I could get much closer to them, but here they take off as soon as they notice me.

Like most of the bird pictures I’ve shared lately, these were taken from inside the house, through the window. It means the pics are a touch less crisp than if I was outside, but there’s also less chance my subjects get spooked and fly off.

And while I love the male cardinals… I REALLY love the female cardinals.

While she might not be as bright as her male counterpart, no one could call her boring.

I think the way the her yellow body contrasts with the red on her wings, and her bright orange beak is just so elegant. She’s a true beauty.

While much smaller, the male house finches certainly still catch your eye.

Their female counterparts don’t have any colour…

But they are such lovely, delicate little creatures.

Did you know that House Finches are not native to this area? They often get confused with the native Purple Finch (which is red, not purple), but House Finches are native to the western United States and Mexico. In 1940, New York pet stores were selling them illegally, and they released caged house finches iy to avoid wildlife officer raids. The first house finch reported in Ontario was in 1970, and the first breeding was reported 1978. Now they are a common sight throughout the province.

And they are a very common sight at my feeders.

And this little guy isn’t quite red… but he is rosey

He’s a Rose Breasted Nuthatch. They were a common site at the townhouse, but less so here. I saw this guy hopping through the tree outside my window one day, then got these pictures of him at the feeder a few days later. But I haven’t seen him since.

Regardless, he was a very welcome visitor.

What red birds visit your yard?

Well.. here we are, the first day of the third month of the year. February is usually a slog for me, but this one flew by. Especially considering it’s been so cold and snowy. But however fast or slow, March is here.

The heart wreath has been switched out for the leprechaun – may he bring us all a little luck. The temps have dropped again and they say we may get more snow this weekend. I went out and cut some pussywillows to bring in the house.

They seem much more pink in the house, so maybe the temps have something to do with the vibrancy of the colour.

As pretty as they are, I decided they needed a little somethin more, so I picked up some cut tulips with groceries last night.

Just perfect, if you ask me!

With the warmer weather, Rupert has been joining Lemmy in the catio more.

That means lots of gingery chaos ensues…

Tuesday night, Dave and I headed in to Strathroy to run a few errands. On the way home, we noticed a bright orange glow in the western sky. As we got a little closer to home, we realized the glow was from a fire. And from the amount of glow… it looked like a big one!

We decided to see if we could find it. When we hit Petrolia (about 35-40 minutes from where we started), I realized the flame was coming from a stack. I grew up in Hamilton, and flames on stacks were a fairly common sight at the steel plants nearby.

It was still pretty far off in the distance, so we kept going toward it. Finally, we got up close and personal at Nova Chemicals (they make plastics), just outside Corunna (a town about 10 minutes south of Sarnia)…. a good 70 km from where we first saw the glow.

I pulled into the plant’s drive (something we were never able to do in Hamilton!), pulled off to the side and Dave took a picture.

The flame is from a process called “flaring” where they burn off excess hydrocarbon gases that cannot be recovered or recycled. We were probably still a good kilometre or more from the actual stack, but you could hear the roar of that flame and feel it’s warmth.

It was a pretty wild site – and a fun little evening adventure.

We’ve had a nice little warm up this week. Yesterday it got up to 8 Celsius, so I took my lunch hour and enjoyed it with Lemmy in the catio.

It was wonderful to sit and soak up some warm sun. Despite the warmth, there’s still a lot of snow out there.

Still, I trudged through it to check on my pussywillows.

The pink ones are a touch more pink… but not as pink as they’ve been in previous years. There are however lots of them! The bush is just covered in catkins and they are so fluffy!!!!

The black pussywillow is always a little behind the pink one…

It’s just getting started.

And the grey one… well I let the grey one grow a little too much…

So all the catkins are out of reach! It will be getting a good pruning this spring.

Elsewhere…

I relocated my white double lilac last fall. It had been getting shaded out by the raspberries, and wasn’t growing well. I wasn’t sure how well it would survive the transition, but here it is sprouting up through the snow.

The rest of the gardens pretty much look like this…

But there was one bare patch beside the house and look…

Green sprouts!!!! Spring is coming…. eventually!

This is the current state of block seven

After working all day and part of Saturday evening on completing the quilt top, I didn’t have any energy to do any stitching in the evening. I had a hot bath, then watch a bit of TV before bed.

Sunday evening was more productive embroidery-wise. I did the stems on the outside flowers and then got a start on all those French knots. You can see how far I got (and how far I still have to go). I’md definitely improving at them, but they are still hard on the hands.

It looks like my new kit has a lot more satin stitch and I think I will enjoy that much more. But… I’ve got to complete this kit first! One more weekend and I’ll be onto block eight.

I’ve got plans to head to Mom’s in mid-March. Whenever I got to Mom’s, I like to take at least two tops to quilt. But so far, I only had one – the Blockhead Bee top.

So I decided since I finally had some time to get in the studio this weekend, I needed to complete a top. I only had two choices – the diagonal four patches, or the retirement quilt.

Since the retirement quilt has a deadline (April 30th), so I figured that was the obvious choice… and I got to it!

And Burton immediately got to helping!

Working around him, I sewed and sewed and sewed until I got all the sashings done.

And then it was just a matter of sewing everything together. And throwing on some borders.

The boys gave it a thorough comfort test. When I have them some treats for their effort, I was able to get a better shot.

It’s fairly simple, just nine-patch stars with cornerstars. But it creates a few different secondary patterns depending on how you focus on it. And that’s one of the things I love about quilting!