Work is progressing nicely on my little green socks. I’ve rounded the heel on the second on and I’m moving down the gusset. Happily, I have little feet, so I’m well on track to finish this pair by the end of the month!

A while back, Dave and I were at the Re-Store and we came across this amazing couch.

It was in near perfect condition… and even though it was only $75, Dave said I couldn’t bring it home. So cruel.

I was sad.

But a couple weeks later… we came across this on the side of the road.

I suspect I was only allowed to bring it home, because his grandmother had one just like it. He wanted to bring that one home after she passed – but it was really worn out and not worth saving.

This one was in much better condition and while it wasn’t a pink sofa, I was happy to settle for a free pink chair.

Of course, once I got it home, it immediately got claimed. And not just by one cat – every time I turn around, at least one of the four is in it. And sometimes two!

And of course, that means it’s just COVERED in cat hair. I needed something to protect it. I had planned on making a little quilted pad for it. But last week, when we were out thrifting again, I came across someone else’s creation.

A perfect sized little baby quilt! It was definitely hand made, and didn’t look like it had every been used! I was more than happy to snap it up and bring it home to be appreciated.

Just purrfect!

It seems Mother Nature went off her meds again. After a week of very fall-like weather, last weekend, things heated up again and stayed that way until Thursday.

How warm was it?

Warm enough to wake the Butterflies up.

The White Cabbage and Red Admiral aren’t a total surprise. They are always the first butterflies we see in the spring. But this little Fiery Skipper caught me off guard.

Not only is it a new butterfly for my collection, but Skippers I only tend to see on the hottest days of summer.

The warm up also had some of the yarrow blooming again.

So is the Delphinium

And the roses…

Well the roses just haven’t stopped.

The weather is much more seasonal now… so I’m guessing there won’t be much more of this.

But we’ll enjoy the colour while we can

Long-time readers will recall that Rupert and Relic were once arch-nemeses. Well look at them now…

Dave says he comes down almost every morning and sees them in the basket like this. But this was the first time I’d seen it.

Just two little mis-matched peas in a pod.

The weekend did afford one full day in the studio. Once again, I was fighting the urge to start something new. But my Blockhead quilt was still sitting there… just waiting to be put together. And Burton had a plan!

It involved fussy cutting a pile of wee bees.

We turned them into little cornerstars between the blocks. Here’s a closer look.

Then it was time to add a few borders.

Here’s a closer look at those…

It all totals up to a nice little lap quilt (56″ x 70″)

I’ve got this lovely yellow paisley for the back, and more bees for the binding.

And apparently, I did start a new project after all…

I’ve got enough of those fussy cut bees to make 35 little nine patches…. oh dear….

While weekend stitching has been slow… weeknight stitching… aka knitting time, is going exceedingly well.

I’ve got the first sock of a another pair for me off the needles. The yarn is Felici – colour is Aquarium – with some yellow Stroll for ribbing, heel and toe. I’m hoping to get the whole pair off the needles by the end of the month… Just nine days. I think I can, I think I can!

I’m starting to feel like a broken record with my “I didn’t have much time to stitch this weekend” week after week. But here we are again…

I didn’t even stitch enough to finish the whole first colour on the left side leaves. Sigh…

There’s always next weekend right? Actually, with the gardens more or less put to bed… there should be more time for stitching on the weekends. At least until Spring…

Vacation is over, and I’m back to work this week. I could definitely use another week off, but it’s not to be.

I was hoping to get in the sewing studio more than I did… but I did manage a couple days at the machine.

One day, I only had a couple of hours to work on it. I REALLY wanted to start something new, but I managed to resist and decided to get started on the top made from my Leader/Ender four patches.

Normally, I try to do top assembly all in one day. I lay everything out on my bed, then just work at it until it’s done (dinner be damned!).

I knew that wasn’t going to happen for this top for two reasons. First, lately I just can’t seem to devote a whole day to sewing, even though I want to. And second… I’ve got a lot of four patches… it’s going to be WAY bigger than the top of the bed.

So after at little thinking, I devised a way to do it in steps. I’m putting the four-patches on point, with a plain off-white square in between each, so I laid the first few rows of the first corner out on my machine-side pressing station.

And I got to sewing. It didn’t take long to get it all together. As soon as it was done, I made a second corner.

Now whenever I have a spare hour, I can pop in the studio, and bang out a pair of rows – one for each side. Eventually they will meet in the middle and the quilt top will be done. When exactly will that be? It depends on how often I can get in the studio

But this pair is determined to see that I finish it!

On Tuesday of last week, Dave and I managed to get out for a day of thrifting. We went down to Chatham, where there’s a whole bunch of thrift stores we don’t often get to visit. The drive there is a nice one – all country roads that go through a few small towns. And I noticed how gorgeous the fall colour was. Unfortunately, as I was driving.. there are no pictures to show you. I’ve tried to make up for it with pics from my walk to the post office instead.

There are a lot of old maples in town, and they really seem to give the best colour.

This house has a couple of very old maples (my guess is over 100 years old) and they turn the most gorgeous shade of bright red every year. They absolutely glow in the sunshine. The owners also tap these trees each spring.

This Maple is just down the street from us. Its not as old as the red one, but it’s much fuller and lusher. And you can see it’s leaves are more orange than red. I think it’s just as pretty.

Our only tree is a purple Norway Maple. It’s leaves are beautiful in the summer, with it’s red/green/purple tints… but they just turn brown and fall off in the autumn

They do give a satisfying crunch underfoot though! They also provide a nice bit of insulation for the plants and critters in my Woodland Garden.

The colour will probably only last another week or so. A couple good windstorms, or a really hard frost, and all the leaves will be stripped from the branches.

At least I can enjoy the view out my sewing room window until then!

The garden is definitely beginning to decline, and we are just one good hard frost from it being all over. But I’ve got a couple last minute wins to celebrate

This first is this little guy.

He’s a Checkered Skipper, and I’ve been chasing him (or a relative) all summer trying to get pictures. But I always seemed to see him when I didn’t have the camera, or was otherwise engaged with something. He’s very small (that’s a Cosmos bloom he’s sitting on), and fast.

But about a week and a half ago, I saw him, ran in, got the camera and managed to get a couple pictures.

It was a fairly warm afternoon and he must have been out taking advantage of the last days.

At the same time, in the same garden, I came across a NEW butterfly to add to my collection.

He’s a Common Buckeye. But they can’t be that common, because this is the first time I’ve seen one in the garden. He was easily three times the size of the Skipper.

Like the Skipper, he seemed to be taking advantage of the last few flowers.

Since then, the nights have been appreciably colder and the butterflies are all gone (even the Cabbage Whites). There’s still a bee or two around if the afternoon gets warm enough, but soon enough they will sleep for the winter.

And the last wonder is one I’ve been waiting a few years for.

This is a flower called Monkshood (also known and Aconite or Wolfsbane. I planted it last year (or maybe the year before) in Willow Grove, and while it grew well enough – it never bloomed. I was starting to think I needed to find a new spot for it.

I’m thrilled to finally see it in flower, and hope to see more next year!

But I went out the other week and noticed it was budding up. I wasn’t sure if it would manage to bloom completely before the cold weather hit – but there it is! Most Monkshood is a solid blue-purple, but this one is a hybrid, giving it a lovley bi-colour.

The gardens aren’t quite done yet – though there’s frost damage all around the garden, there are still flowers hanging on to the bitter end. But it won’t be long now… fall is well and truly here and winter won’t be far behind. And now we wait for the wonders of another summer.