Larva Update

We're 5 days into the larval stage.

The water reservoirs are working well. The larvae seem to be happy to munch away without moving very far. They really do seem to prefer the tender new leaves.

They've doubled in size from their first day out of the egg.

Those black specks are its frass (poop) which will get bigger as the larva gets bigger.

Using this system, I don't have to do a lot of work as their fresh food source is right there. I just have to make sure the reservoirs are topped up with water a couple of times a day. Pretty soon they'll go into the 'Caterpillar Castle' where they'll spend the rest of their larval stage and then pupate, forming their chrysalis on the top of the mesh cube.

I haven't found any other eggs or larvae yet altho' it is early in the season. We have lots of milkweed in and around our garden and yard so I'll keep looking.

Any monarchs that emerge before August 1 will mate and lay eggs in the area. It is those offspring that will make their way down to Mexico for the winter and three generations will work their way back north next spring.

Patriotic Luggage Tag

Scooter is going on an overseas holiday in August so I wanted to make him a luggage tag. I bought the maple leaf fat quarter at The Quilter's Cupboard at their sale on Friday and had the red fabric in my stash.

A business card or address card slides into the bound, vinyl window stitched onto the interfaced, interior fabric.

The buttonhole is centred and is halfway between the border of the vinyl and the end of the tag.

The exterior is the same size as the interior fabric. In this case, I matched the tag strap to the exterior fabric.

It folds in half and the strap goes through the buttonhole on the right, concealing the personal information.

Folded up. the strap loops through the suitcase handle and the rest of the tag is shoved through it. 

With this on his suitcase, he'll easily be able to distinguish it from the many others at the luggage carousel.

I've made one for Skip, too.

Just Bee

I've had this stitched for quite a while and only fully finished them last weekend. They were my contribution to the Trillium Guild's TATA (Trillium Annual Themed Award).

They're two of the Just Bee smalls from Hands On Design.

The pinkeep was mounted on foam core with a plain fabric on the back.

Coordinating cotton chenille trim was included with the pattern and was attached with white-headed pins.

I made the twisted cord for the pin cusion with the darkest grey floss colour and white. The bee charm also came with the pattern.

The patterned fabric was a fat quarter from my stash.

I think they're really cute. 

 Marilyn's received the Original Design Award for her exploding box.

Jeanette received the Chart/Adapted Design Award for her Hardanger Trio.

I was the third participant so I received the third award for Technical Merit. With this certificate was a generous gift certificate for Kimat Designs.

I'm still waiting to receive the kit from the designer that wants me to stitch her sample. Hopefully she had time to send it last week. I can't wait to get started on it. Unfortunately it will be a 'stealth' project until the pattern is finally printed and it is released. But if you're curious, it is one of the patterns she's been converting to cross stitch that she talked about on this episode of her FlossTube channel.

2 Hatchlings and Diamond Painting

Two of the three eggs hatched today. I knew one was imminent as I could see its black head through the egg casing this morning. This one's eaten through the egg and is starting in on the milkweed leaf.

This one's already eaten through its 'birthleaf' (my unofficial terminology).

After just a few hours as a larva, it's about 3/32" long (2.3mm). It will be about 2" long (5cm) in a couple of weeks just before pupating (forming the chrysalis). That's about 200x its original size.

I also finished my diamond painting. You can see why I liked it.

I ironed it from the back on with a warm iron on synthetic setting to smooth it out. It worked quite well. Now my task will be to find a frame to fit it. It may involve cutting it right up to the edge of the 'diamonds' and mounting it on a plain background to act as a mat.

Earliest Findings - Monarch Season Begins

In spite of the cold weather this spring and the delay of flowers blooming, our milkweed has shot up in the last couple of weeks. I was out yesterday having a cursory look for monarch eggs and actually spotted a couple of them. One was right on top of a leaf. I decided this year, to take the top off the plant and keep it in water so the emerging larva would have fresh milkweed to eat for a few days after hatching.

I found two more eggs.

So I've put each stem in a water reservoir for flowers (I buy them at Michaels) and the three of them are in a canning jar.

They'll be fine there until after the larvae hatch and they're crawling around relatively boisterously. Then they'll go into their individual containers until they're big enough (1cm or so) to go into the 'Caterpillar Castle'.

This is the earliest  in June I've ever found eggs. I'm not sure how large a scale I want to operate this year. I raised 75 to adulthood in 2017 and scaled back to 25 last year, but we don't have any big summer trips planned so I'll just go with the flow.

Dans le Jardin

Skip and I got back from our trip this afternoon. I just went out to the garden to see what all is different from when we left. Not much, it seems. I guess the cool, rainy weather just halted thing yet more.

These violets were a Mother's Day gift from a local breakfast restaurant. They're doing well in the garden by the back door.

The dark peonies have bloomed and will be done soon. With another bunch of rain, the petals will probably drop off.

A few of these rust-coloured irises are in bloom. I don't particularly like them but they're big and an early bloom.

The chives have been in bloom for a couple of weeks now.

Siberian iris are still blooming.

We have several other peony bushes that are in bud so if it ever warms up, they'll bust out.

On our drive through Michigan and southwestern Ontario, I noticed a lot of milkweed plants along the highways and in the medians. I'm hoping lots of monarch butterflies find them. I keep checking the plant around our house but so far, no eggs or larvae. As I customarily find eggs or larvae in the last week of June, the weather has been so cold and rainy, I'm not expecting to find much until into July.

Souvenir Stitchery Charts

Yesterday Skip and I headed to Southwestern Ontario to visit my sister and brother-in-law. We got a late start leaving home for no particular reason, and when we finally did get on the road, we got a flat tire on the 407 just west of Lakeridge Road - only about 15 km from home. Before Skip could react after getting us safely over to the shoulder, I was reaching for my CAA Plus card and my cell phone. It took the person who answered my call almost 20 minutes to figure out where we were on a map - I mean, how hard is it to find "Kilometre 112.5 on Hwy 407 just west of Lakeridge Rd in Ajax"?  Then it took the towtruck almost an hour to get to us. It was a beautiful, sunny day and there were hardly any cars on the toll road. Sheesh! I have CAA Plus for which I  pay extra every years but it affords me a 100km tow instead of a 10km tow. We have had a couple of other 'adventures' with Skip's previous two cars while in south Texas and on the way to Florida a few years later.

When the towtruck got there we determined he couldn't just hook up the front end and tow us because it was a rear tire that had blown. He decided to put our spare tire on instead. He hauled out a couple of jacks from his truck but the soil on the shoulder was so soft, it just kept digging the jack into the ground rather than lifting Skip's car.

I suggested he put a floor mat under the jack to keep it from sinking so he got a floor mat and a bigger jack but he didn't have the right handle for it. He then asked to use our jack. It took us a couple of minutes to find Skip's virgin jack but did use the floor mat and finally got the tires swapped out.

By this time, Skip and I had decided to drive the car home and leave it there, loading my car up for the trip. He then called the tire place and ordered 2 new tires which should be in by Friday when we get home when he can take his car in and get them installed.

By the time we got back on the road three hours had lapsed from our initial departure time so we didn't get to my sister's in Petrolia until 5:30. Oh well, we weren't really on a tight schedule after all.

This morning we got up early-ish and after breakfast we got on the road by 9:30 to cross the St. Clair River on the Bluewater Bridge and head westward to Grand Rapids.

En route, when we arrived at Flint, we dipped down to Fenton MI so I could visit a stitchery shop called Stitches N Things.

I could have spent hours in there but chose to abbreviate my visit and only grabbed these 4 cross stitch charts as souvenirs:

Our plan tomorrow is to attend the LPGA event at a local golf course but the weather report will determine whether we attend in the morning or the afternoon.

In the meantime we are enjoying our cozy hotel room and are presently deciding where to go for supper.

"The Beast" is Done

I finally finished the i-cord edging on my big sock yarn blanket aka 'The Beast'.

Using dps I cast on 3 sts and picked up a 4th on the wrong side of the blanket. Then *slid the stitches to the other end of the needle and knit 2 then k2tog. Then I picked up the next stitch on the edge and repeated from * until I made it all the way around to where I started.

Doing it from the wrong side makes the i-cord stand up on the right side.

At largest dimensions, it is 10 across and 14 down or 40" x 56" - plenty big to nap under.

I did use up a lot of sock yarn but still have lots left so I continue to work on my Excavation blanket. I hope to make it at least 36" wide before starting the decreases. I may also add rows to make it rectangular by casting on at one edge and decreasing at the other for a foot or so.

Finally Some Nice Weather

This has been a very rainy and cool spring. All our plants in the garden are behind. Photos from years past show up on my phone with peonies in full bloom and flower arrangements with them and lilacs. Not this year.

Our lilacs are in bloom now and peonies have a couple more weeks to go. Today is the first day I haven't worn a wool sweater in the past couple of weeks.

The other day I made a bunch of mesh bags that I like to use at the grocery store instead of bringing my vegetables home in those thin plastic bags. I have an old screen that went with our old gazebo on the deck. I don't think we ever used it because we head inside at the first sign of mosquitoes.

I cut the mesh into 16" wide by 15" tall pieces, making sure the stretchiest part is on the width:

 I folded them in half on the long side and zigzagged (5mm width, 1.5mm length) along the bottom and up the side.

That's it! They only weigh 4g so there's not a lot of additional weight to your weighed produce. Bags with drawstrings, zippers, toggles, and other closures just add weight which you pay for.

They're so thin I carry a bunch of them in the side pocket of my purse so they're handy when I'm shopping. I know my little contribution won't solve the problem of how we dispose of our garbage but at least I feel like I'm doing something for the cause by minimizing the number of plastic bags we bring into the house.

I gave all those bags away last week but whipped up more today.

I also purchased reusable straws on Amazon. The package came with 2 of everything: long metal straight straws, long metal bent straws, long silicone fat straws, and long silicone skinny straws.  I like the silicone straws when sipping something that is very cold. There are also two cleaning brushes and two drawstring bags. I keep one bag with a selection of straws and the cleaner in the bottom of my purse, ready to use whenever I need to. So far I have remembered to remove the straw before throwing the container away.

I'm very excited about a new opportunity that has come my way. I will be stitching samples for a well-known folk artist who has rendered many of her designs for punch needle. Now she's charting a lot of her designs for cross-stitch and needs stitchers for the photographs that will accompany the chart with the credit given to the stitcher. I await my first assignment. I hope it arrives before next Tuesday as Skip and I will be heading off on a road trip for the rest of the week.

Cunningham III

I finished the most recent Cunningham blanket the other day. I had actually finished it a few weeks ago but had to improvise the last 10 rows or so of the border with a yarn from a different dyelot and I wasn't happy with it. During the excavation of my craft room/office I found the errant 6th ball of Smart (DK superwash) that had gotten misplaced so I ripped out the unmatching yarn and finished it off with the matching yarn.

I blocked the edges by weaving the blocking wires in and out of the border edge every 2 stitches. 

I then pull firmly and pin to open out all the lace and measure to make sure the edges are all the same length so it's square.

I do enjoy knitting this as the pattern is pretty easy and it goes quickly for me.

 

After it's dry and I pull out the wires, the bumps where I wove the wires in and out are visible. They are easily smoothed out with steam from my iron and smoothing with my fingers.

I think every baby should have a nice knitted item. So far the parents of the previous recipients have been very appreciative.