Busy Saturday

I had a busy and productive day. I met Heather (http://www.friendsknittogether.blogspot.com/) at the Bathurst subway stop. We went to the Quilter's Palette in Etobicoke. Heather got a few fat quarters of blues. I like the fabric she picked. Oh, if I didn't have so much fabric already. I have fabric for four quilt tops and Mish Mash to finish hand quilting.

I got some fabric for the border of the Ohio Star quilt I'm going to make with Amy Butler's Belle line of fabric. I also got Butler's pattern for High Street Messenger Bag. I think it has the possibility of gifts.

I went to Grassroots and got a new polo shirt. I bought 4 pepper plants. After spending some time with the cats, I returned my extra yarn to Romni for a store credit. Not sure what my next knitting project is yet. I went to Pre-Loved and picked up a shirt for Trish and a shirt for myself.

Tomorrow is time in the garden. I watered the garden today. I'll water first thing in the morning and spend some time weeding and trimming the trees. I'll also hand quilt, while I watch the Under 20 Canadian team play.

I also have reading to do. I have read a little more than half of the course kit readings for one of my courses. It is the kit from last fall. I'm not sure how much it will change. But is giving me a sense of what to expect in terms of readings. September and October will be busy with working fulltime and going to school.

There is a session that I'm attending on Tuesday called "What is Community Work; Highlights of the field". One of my goals is to get a sense of how many hours I'll need to make up at work.

More later.

L

A Quiet Sunday at Home

Trish and I are enjoying Sunday. Trish is busy working (grading papers) and I'm, well not working. I have done some housework (dishes and the laundry is in progress). We did a bulk of the cleaning yesterday. We had lattes and chocolate croissants for breakfast from Madelaine's up the street. I have a few articles I want to read in the Sunday Star, but that can wait. I will need to make a trip to the grocery store, but first I need to figure out what I feel like cooking this week.

I had Friday off. I finally took the old desktop computer and monitor to Re-Boot to donate. The highlight of Friday was finishing the baby quilt for Nette. Yesterday I took some photos for my archives. Of course the cats were happy to help model with it. The quilt is now in the wash. I'll give it to Nette tomorrow at work. I send the extra fabric from the backing to Wendy to get a custom made changing cloth made (I'll post photos when I receive it). Wendy and two friends are in the process of setting up a small business. I have to find out if they have a website yet (I'll post a link for it).

I can now focus on finishing hand quilting Mish Mash. I also need to cut Allison's fabric for her Mish Mash. Once those projects are completed I can start on my next quilt. Allison got me two fat quarters of Kaffe Fassett from the quilt store on Bronte that is going out of business. I need to decide if I want to use the Kaffe Fassett or Amy Butler for my next quilt. Oh the terrible dilemmas I have. I'm going to use the left over fabric from Nette's quilt to practice making the blocks for the next quilt. Trish had the great idea of using the sample blocks and making oven pads out of them.

I still have to take the extra yarn from my Twisted vest back to Romni. Maybe next weekend. I am currently without a knitting project. I think I'm okay with that, I hope the shaking is from an excess of coffee.

Hopefully today we will have time to work in the garden. There is a lot of work to go. At the very least I need to water. Here a clematis. There are two other ones growing on the south fence, but there late bloomers.

More later.

L

Figjam

I have just finished sewing the top of the binding onto the quilt for Nette. Now I have to hand sew the back of the binding and it will be done.

FIGJAM. A coworker recently told me about this term. It stands for F#*k I'm Good, Just Ask Me (FIGJAM).

I'll take some photos once it completed.

Figjam.

More later.

L

Saturday

It has been a while since I have posted. I hadn't uploaded any new photos to my computer and I get bored of hearing myself ramble and figured you would too...

I have been working on the baby quilt for Nette. I have finished hand quilting it today. For the most part I have quilted it with circles. Now I need to work on the binding. I have started to cut the binding strips. It will be finished before she goes on mat leave at the end of the month. Here is Calle helping me baste it.

Things have been quiet. Allison was away for a few days (so she wasn't calling). We have finished watching season four of Monk. There are several options: Rome, Big Love, Deadwood. There is also the possibility of going to see a movie at the theatre (what a novel idea).

I'll leave you with some photos from the garden.

More later.

L

Back Home

I had a relatively quiet flight home from Halifax on Saturday. Allison and Len met me at the airport and drive me home. They brought Harrison and Jackson. We had a walk to the little dog park, then came home for a visit.

I took the TTC to the airport the previous Saturday. It took less than an hour to get to the airport from home. I was worried about being stressed about timing the connection to the airport express bus, but I made it in plenty of time.

I had a great visit with my parents and family. I took a lot of photos of the scenery. I apparently should have been taking photos of people instead according to some of my coworkers.

Here are some of my favourite photos.

Here is a humming bird. They have already arrived in large numbers. I know it is sort of like a "Where's Waldo" puzzle, but there is a humming bird in the photo.

These are from the land behind my parents' house.

These photos are from our trip around the Cabot Trail.

On the way to the Halifax airport. Elizabeth was visiting with me in the front seat.

More later.

L

Native Plants

The native plants in the back shade garden are all doing well. Here is one of my favourites, the Wood Poppy.

This is one of my Trilliums. I also have yellow and red Trilliums that should be blooming soon.

The Jack-In-The-Pulpit has returned. Each year I fear it is not coming back. I need to remind myself that it comes back later than the other native plants.

Here are the Solomon Seals. I think there were two plants originally. There is also a few False Solomon Seal plants.

I have started a sweater vest for myself. I went to Romni today and bought the yarn. The photo below is the colour of Trish's vest. I got "Mango" for myself. It is a lighter orange.

I still need to make travel arrangements to the airport for my flight on the 19th. I should get that done soon. I also need to get carry-on luggage.

So much to do, so little time... Oh my. I better get back to my knitting.

More later.

L

Weeds, weeds and more weeds

There is a nasty weed in our garden. Its common name is Garlic Mustard. It comes under the fence from the yard to our north. The couple there don't garden much on that side. Between Trish and I, we spent almost two hours weeding along the fence.

Other than the weeds, the garden is doing well. The Hepaticas are almost done blooming. The Bloodroot opened yesterday and was gone today.

Several of the Mayapples will have blooms this year. Hopefully the squirrels will not destroy the buds again this year.

This is Spartacus. She lives in the house giving us Garlic Mustard. She lives with Kubla. I think we will be seeing a lot of them this summer.

More later.

L

It has been a while...

Today was too nice to stay indoors. I spent some time in the yard getting rid of weeds and tidying up. There was an incredible number of cigarette butts in the vegetable garden. I wonder how they got there, Dad?

I finally finished the online HTML course I was taking through work. I think I understood what I was reading. I will learn more as I work with HTML and design my website. Okay I have no immediate plans to create a site from scratch.

Here are photos from the garden. The first one is a Hepatica.

This is another variety of Hepatica.

And finally the scillas. They have spread throughout the garden.

I have finished Trish's sweater vest. I'll take photos tomorrow. Finally a knitted gift for Trish that is finished before the required date.

This is what Calle does with her favourite catnip mouse. She carries around the house and periodically drops it in her water dish to make catnip soup. She is an odd cat.

More later.

L

Sunday Afternoon

On Friday I cut the fabric for the baby quilt. Yesterday I went to the Quilter's Palette (www.quilterspalette.ca) and got the fusible web for the circle appliques. I also picked up batting and fabric for the back. I spent the afternoon sewing the appliques and then the blocks into rows. Today I sewed the rows together. I had a problem with my sewing machine that took too long to figure out the problem. Although sewing is faster, with knitting if there a technical problem, it is me. Oh well. I figured it out and it is okay now.



Here is the top of the baby quilt.

I think I'll hand quilt circles in the blocks. I still need to figure out my border. I'm not even sure I'll use a border. I'll sleep on that decision.

The fabric I am using is Denyse Schmidt's Flea Market Fancy (http://www.freespiritfabric.com/core-pages/gallery.php?gal_id=84). I tried to use mostly blues and browns, since it is for a boy.

I have almost three months until I need to give the quilt to Antonette. So I'm going to focus on Trish's sweater vest.

I saw a woodpecker in our yard this afternoon. Unfortunately if I tried to go outside to get a photo, I would have scared it off. So I admired it from a far.

How wrong is this? This afternoon I'll be cheering for the New Jersey Devils. If the Islanders lose the game, the Leafs will make the playoffs. "Go Devils Go".

More later.

L

Spring Snow

Last Friday (March 30th) I used my Volunteer Day from work to help sell daffodils for the Canadian Cancer Society. There were three of us from work selling. It was a lot of fun. We sold out of flowers. I'm not sure how much money we raised, but it was at least $1000, probably closer to $1200. On the weekend I had a nasty stomach bug. I called in sick on Monday. So I worked three days this week and am exhausted. Why are short weeks also so tiring?

All winter I thought there was a dog that was regularly running in the backyard and leaving "presents". I was convinced of this early in the morning as I'm leaving for work. By the time I'd get home, I'd be awake and using logic. I mean, how can a dog regularly get into our yard from the street. I know there far too many irresponsible dog owners in our neighbourhood. The people who think that the leash works if they have it in their hand but not attached to the dog's collar. I hate these people. I understand taking the leash off in a dog park. But walking down Bathurst is not safe... On Monday while I was looking out the window thinking of the possibilities of spring I saw a dog in our yard, in the process of leaving me a "present". I went out back to find its human to clean up after it. The dog ran to the back right corner and went under the fence to get home. I blocked the hole in the fence with a planter box. This dog was completely unsupervised wandering the backyards of Albany. Great humans. At least I'm not crazy. Okay not crazy about confusing a dog and a raccoon.

It has been snowing here. A light dusting of snow is on the garden. Foliage is starting to emerge from the soil. Most of the daylilies have appeared.

I have been working on Trish's sweater vest. Last night I was in the process of the starting the v-neck of the front, when I realised that I had managed to stop knitting one of the middle ribs. I had to take out almost 10 inches of knitting. OUCH! But I will survive. It was far too noticable mistake to try to pretend it didn't happen. What makes it hard is that I'm knitting using a 4mm needle. I still think I can get it done for Trish's birthday later this month.

Here is Calle modelling the sweater vest. I'm not sure the colour of the vest compliments her colouring...

I have a plan for baby quilt I'm going to make. It involves circles and applique, oh my. The fabric that I got at the Quilter's Palette will look great.

This is a sampling of the fabric I have.

Now all I need is to learn how to sew in circles for the applique. Oh and more fusible web.

I should start knitting. I have some time to make up. I also want to get some housework out of the way.

More later.

L