Yesterday was a very special day! Bestie Samantha was coming to visit!!! We only live about an hour and a half away from each other, but because of busy lives only get together a couple times of year. She also brought her husband Michael and two of her three kids (Ethan and Owen – Lily had to work). The kids are all adults now, which is still wild to me! Time certainly marches on.

We had such a good time, I neglected to take any photos.

I can show you the flowers I cut for the table:

The dessert I made for after dinner (dinner was pork roast with mashed potatoes, carrots, asparagus and apple sauce)

Cherry Cheese pie! Recipe here

And the note Samantha left for me on my menu board on the fridge.

Word is, the boys may be coming back out soon to hang out with Dave and do car stuff. Samantha may even come for the ride!

No more seeds planted this last week…

But boy howdy, have the Dahlias taken off!! Because it was a long weekend last weekend, I wasn’t in my office for four days. When I went up there on Tuesday, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Look at all that growth.

Elsewhere -the first tray of seedlings is doing great…. many of the them are getting their true leaves. I’ll probably open the rolls and add some soil, then re-roll so they have room to develop really good roots.

The second tray are a little further behind, which is to be expected.

And in the third tray…

The big ones are (I think) squash and pumpkins. The smaller ones are foxglove and snapdragons

It’s quite the contrast, but things are definitely growing around here!

Now is the time when things really start to get going in the garden. The crocuses are starting to go over – though there are still a few left.

We’ve got Glory of the snow popping out everywhere.

I was a little worried because I only had one pink clump, but over the last week, more and more have appeared. And that the thing about the smaller spring bulbs – just suddenly one day they are there, looking beautiful…

And they go almost a quickly.

The daffodils stick around longer…

And I’ve got lots of daffodils.

Especially in the catio. These ones have just multplied like crazy! I think I’m going to dig some up and spread them around.

And Forsythia

And hyacinths and so much more to come!

Today’s post is less about the felines, and more about the feline confinement yard… aka the Catio.

When I created the space, I was on a budget. So I lined the paths and open areas with landscape fabric and threw down some mulch. And it worked well. It wasn’t perfect… it had to be weeded, and replenished yearly… but it worked. Then we got Lemmy.

Remember that when Lemmy was kitten, we had a problem with him using houseplants as a toilet? Well… he did the same thing with the mulch. Only there was no way to train him out of it like the houseplants. It wasn’t so bad in the nicer weather – I could get out there and clean up after him, much like you would with a dog. But in winter.. it was harder. Every spring, I’ve had to do a mega poo clean up – and toss out a pile of otherwise decent mulch (thankfully, he mostly kept it to one area).

I’ve longed to switch the paths over to stone anyway… and a little while back I go a $150 gift card for Home Depot. So I looked up the cost of stone, and figured it would cover at least half of what I needed. I ran the idea by Dave, and Monday we headed out to the store.

When we got there, he talked me out of the stone I was going to get, and into a much prettier stone. I was going to get much smaller, rougher river rocks, but he wanted the rounder, bigger beach stone. Of course, his stone was 50% more expensive, and the bags were half the size. We got 15 bags, as much as we could fit on the cart. I knew it wouldn’t do the whole catio, but I thought it would do at least half…

Not even close! It didn’t even fill the big sitting area at the end by the porch. I’m going to need another 15 bags just to finish off this area. I think it’s going to take at least 30-50 more bags to do the whole catio. So it’s going to be a much longer, much more expensive project than I planned. But Dave is right… it’s going to look pretty good.

I think the cats are going to enjoy having some cool rocks to lay across on hot summer days. And I’m going to enjoy not cleaning up poopies!

With the Kroy socks done, it was time to get something new going. I still had another ball of thrifted yarn hanging about on my table, so I cast on.

My intention was to make Mom a pair of sock for mother’s day – but once I saw the colours knitting up, I decided I like it too much and I’ve decided to make them for me! (Sorry Mom!).

But as much as I love the colours, I do NOT like the yarn. It’s Mary Maxim’s “Step Softly” (Colour is Wild Grass). It doesn’t look like they make it any more… and I think I know why…. it’s splitty. VERY splitty! And slippery! It’s a 75/25 Wool/Nylon blend, but if you didn’t know any better, you’d think there was some silk in it. It’s slippery! That means in addition to splitting, it’s constantly falling off my needles.

I hope it will make a hard-wearing pair of socks, but I’m very glad I only paid $2 for the yarn!

Embroidery needles weren’t the only needles I was plying this weekend.

First, there was the sewing machine needle.

And then a tiny quilting needle…

And at the end of it, I had a finished car blankie for a special beagle.

It finished up at 22.5″ square, completely made from scraps…

Even the back and binding. As you see, I just did some straight-line quilting on the diagonal. A perfect compliment to the simple pattern.

And I even managed to tuck it away before the boys could get their stinky little paws all over it. It’s safe and sound and waiting to be gifted on our visit on Sunday!

It was an extra long weekend here for me (Friday to Monday), and a busy one. I really only settled down to stitch a bit on Sunday evening.

After dinner, Lemmy sat down with me and we tackled that little moth project. It was much like the bee – everything you need included, including needles! There was one noticeable difference. The fabric was a much more open weave. And boy did it make a difference. I definitely want a tighter weave for future projects.

Still, Lemmy and perservered, and by bedtime…

It was finished! Complete with beads. I do love the addition of beads and I will keep it in mind for future projects!

Monday, I gave them both a press, put them back in their frames, and gave them a trim.

And now they are ready for hanging. They will probably go in my office with my other butterfly/moth cross stitches.

And…. some bonus tiny needle content….

Paying for another expensive framing job just isn’t n the budget right now… but Dave informed me, he learned how to cut mats way back in high school (for all he is a musician, he was also an art major). So I put him to the test. I picked out a mat, and we reused and old frame we had kicking around the house.

And now my witchy sampler is framed and hanging! It’s hard to tell in the picture, but the mat is a textured pale orange. I picked it to highlight the little bits of orange throughout. It does a much better job in person.

He hung it in the diningroom, right by my little witchy sign which hangs between the kitchen and dining room.

It will be an even better place when we can finally fix those walls!

Happy Easter Monday! We hope you all had a wonderful Easter Sunday. As normal, it was a nice quiet day for Dave and I.

Mother Nature still has us on her roller coaster, but the garden is starting to come alive

The first daffodils have bloomed!

These ones are called Arctic Bells – they are a minature Hoola-Hoop style and always the first to bloom. They are very small and I REALLY need to find a better spot for them. Unless I go looking for them, they are easy to miss.

But they are so beautiful and pretty! Well worth the searching.

This other early bloomer is also small one called Rip Van Winkle. And it kind of looks like a daffodil and a dandelion had a baby. It could also use a better spot. Note to self – always check growing size when ordering bulbs… and then again when planting them!

The crocuses continue to do their thing, with more popping up every day.

I think these striped ones are my favourite. And the bees love them too. The yard is literally alive with buzzing when the sun is shining. There’s not a tonne in bloom yet, so my gardens are a bit of a bee oasis.

The pussywillows are a popular spot too – though if you look closely, you’ll realize that’s not a bee, but a large hover fly!

The Hellebores continue to be stunningly beautiful! I’d love to add one or two more to the collection here.

The Glory of the Snow is also shining bright when the sun shines – and I’ve got new little bunches popping up every day!

With just a few more warm days, the gardens are going to be awash in yellow!

The previous two seed snails are both doing very well – the first set are starting to show “true” leaves…. moving on from sprouts to actual plants.

And, as promised, last weekend, I rolled up another set of snails. But the weather was nice enough to take the mess outside

There, I rolled up 12 more snails containing all my foxglove, snap dragons, marigolds, cosmos (there’s going to be so many cosmos this year!), pumpkins, squash and cucamelons.

They are now happily under the grow lights with the rest of the snails.

While I was at it… I also planted those dahlia I mentioned

Last year, I started my dahlia outside, closer to June. As a result, I didn’t get flowers until almost October! I’m hoping that by starting them almost two months earlier, that will correlate to earlier blooms.

It’s only been a week but we already have sprouts.

And since I know you’re dying to know what dahlia I planted…

We have (L-R) Mango Madness, Edinburgh (Dave picked this one) and Latte Love (a trio which includes Café au Lait, Café au Lait Rose and Café au Lait Royal).

This summer is going to be a knock-out! I can feel it!

A few weeks back, best friend Samantha asked me if I could make her a small pet quilt for her car. She needed something to put on the seat to keep her beagle, Calibre, from getting the seats too dirty.

So last weekend, Burton and I went through our flannel scraps.

You know I love to use flannel for the backs of quilts, and that means I tend to accumulate a fair bit of scraps. I cut most of them into 5″ squares so I can throw together projects like this. You can see though, Burton feels we should be making this for him, not some dirty old dog.

She didn’t need it very big – around 2 ft x 2 ft, so it went together in mere minutes

Samantha is set to come here next weekend, so I’ll take some time this weekend to layer it, give it some quick straight line quilting, and bind it, and have it ready to go for her visit!