Gardens and Gardening

Wow, has it really been two and a half months since my last post?  Here I am on a long weekend trying to jam a lot of activities like cooking, gardening, quilting and cleaning into 2.5 days . Notice how I put housework last? 😂

I am just going to post photos of some things I've made or done recently.

This next photo is of a part of the garden that I am now calling the Gravel Garden (inspired from Chanticleer's Gravel Garden). 

I have pulled the weeds by hand for the past 4 days from this area. My latest audiobook has kept me company as I haven't seen our resident Cottontail rabbit in ages. G thinks he's on holiday 😊

I was given a lot of pollinator plants last month and they will be going in the Gravel Garden. I daren't  go to a garden centre this weekend because the last time I went, I spent more than I originally planned 😬 I went with a very basic list but started putting plants that were not on the list in the cart ! How could I resist this Agastache 'Kudos Mandarin'?

After I finish the Gravel Garden, hopefully I can  move on to the area I want to call the Scent Garden. It is underneath this triangle of crappy Maples and the shade level ranges from intense to dappled several times throughout the day. My plant list includes a plethora of scented plants from thorny roses to shrubs I've never even seen in my life. A 45 minute road trip will be mandatory (of course!) to my all time favourite Lost Horizons Nursery for most of the plants on said list.

Finally, here is the latest photo of the straw bale garden. All that ☔️ in June has delayed the start of planting and since I'm new to this straw bale gardening, it has been quite a learning curve.

Getting My Handles On My Scrappy Baskets

The last long weekend (Family Day) flew by quickly especially since I brought work home 😬

I took the dogs out twice(!) for a walk that Sunday, both Monty and Ruby probably thought it was their birthday. I wanted to see more signs of spring plus I like going out for walks early in the morning, antisocial me doesn't like bumping into people and I like having the paths all to myself.

Here are the handles I made that weekend. The scrappy baskets are currently on my Scrappy List. I will probably need to make 400 of these to make a queen-sized quilt. I finally found a die that I am happy to use on my Accuquilt Go which has been lying around unused for the last 3 years 😬

I am using up my low volume scraps from my Low Volume Quilt. Occasionally, I pick a solid color to use as one of the backgrounds for the baskets.

Looking Up

The other day, I kept looking up hoping to see the geese on their way back home from being down south especially after seeing the huge drop in temperature over the next couple of days (double digits over the Family Day long weekend!) This is what I saw instead when I was working downtown.

 The Vs remind me of flying geese which in turn reminded me of Block Lotto . I now feel confident to join in the fun although I had a go at making blocks for my Old MacDonald MysterySamplerlast year.

This month's block is called Dutchman's Puzzle and there are 8 Flying Geese units in said block. There was a lot of pressing and the use of my favourite starch-free smoothing spray 😬 I used the same tan text background from the Northcott Sesquicentennial Collection (which I got on sale last week) and used 3 different solids inspired by this paint catalogue.

I hope I win because I REALLY love green (I need a bigger green scrap container as the current one is overflowing with green) 😊

Peanut Butter Hearts (or Bums)

I had a really tiring day from removing snow (hand shovelling and a bit of snow throwing on the machine) so my idea  of relaxing after work was to do some  baking. I have been wanting to make these 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies since last month so after dinner, I showed them to my teenager who said, "Are they supposed to be hearts or bums?" 😂😂😂

Monochromatic Colour Scheme

This "White Swan" Echinacea photo was taken 4 years ago when we visited Niagara Parks Botanical Garden. After coming across A Quarter Inch From the Edge's post on building your own Kona solids palette using the Palette Builder 2.1 from http://www.play-crafts.com/blog/palettebuilder2/, I was stoked to play with it as I have been looking for something to build a Kona solids palette with.

Here are the colours it came up with.

I love the monochromatic scheme and it reminded me of a garden we "quickly" designed for work last fall featuring of course a lot of the white Echinacea and other perennials with interesting foliage.

Finding Inspiration

When I am in a funk (which is almost always), I look around me for inspiration.

Hyacinth blooms grown indoors

 Hex quilt based on one of my favorite board games?

The Settlers of Catan

 
Graphic quilt based on a thrift store find? DH found this poster hanging on the wall of our favorite little thrift store. This is now hanging in his office ;)

Groovy baby!

I saw this throw pillowcase at the local Sally Anne store. The second time I went back it was still there but last week, just when I was looking for it, I couldn't find it anymore :(

Where do you get your inspiration from?

Bright and cheery

Getting Out of The Box

This is what my brain felt like three weeks ago. I was in such a rut I didn't want to do anything at all!

To make matters worse, one of my molars started acting up and gave me so much grief one weekend (was in so much pain over the weekend and almost broke the dentist's clinic doors down when they opened Monday morning). After an X-ray and a consultation with the dentist, it's either root canal or extraction. Of course I chose the latter, never mind if the tooth can still be saved :( The root canal is 3 times more expensive than the extraction and without a dental plan, even an extraction will put me out of pocket. 

I can't help but wonder what percentage of this world's population don't like going to the dentist. I certainly don't! There's something so in-your-face about it, I almost always feel violated afterwards.

The antibiotics and pain meds must've done something to my brain aside from numbing the toothache because I have been in a creating mood ever since. Since then, I have made a diaper bag and made 2 kinds of cake (lemon and coffee cake) which were a big hit with the family.

Diaper Bag

Coffee Cake

Maybe I should get a toothache more often?