Wildflower Wednesday

I love plants with blue flowers.  Oh, but you knew that already.  Today\s plant is called Vipers Bugloss.  It is blue, but I really don't know very much about it.  So I am learning as I go.

Vipers Bugloss grows in poor, sandy soil.  Its flowers are a beautiful blue colour and it is sometimes called Blueweed.  The botanical name for it is Echium vulgare.  The name 'Vipers Bugloss' comes from the word 'Echium', which is derived from the Greek word, 'Echis' for viper.   Many parts of this plant were thought to resemble a viper and it was historically used as a treatment for viper bites.  The word bugloss is derived from the Greek word for ox-tongue, which refers to the shape and roughness of the leaves.   This roughness can cause an itchy, allergic reaction if touched.

But if you look at the photo above you will see some poison ivy growing right in the centre.  If I had touched the plant and developed a rash I would have thought it was due to the poison ivy and not the bugloss.  Vipers Bugloss is in the Borage family, Boraginaceae.  It is a biennial or short-lived perennial and can produce 500 to 2,000 seeds per plant.  It is just starting to fade in my area, but it was beautiful earlier in the spring.  I don't know why I didn't take a picture sooner.

It is considered an invasive species in many areas, but in some parts of the world it is grown near bee hives since bees can turn the nectar from these pretty blue flowers into a delicious honey.

So, Happy Wednesday everyone!   Go out and enjoy some wildflowers today.

Flooding!

We got a lot of rain yesterday.  A record, in fact, over 100mm.  That is more than what fell during hurricane Hazel in 1954.  And coupled with all the rain we have had lately, the ground is saturated and the rivers are full, so flooding occurred in many areas.  Although we were not affected, thousands of people were, either by the floods or by the power outages.  This is what the Don Valley Parkway looked like.  The water in the Don River was level with the roadway.

A whole trainload of folks were trapped on a Go train when the waters rose.  They spent the evening on the train and were not rescued until 2:00am.

Today we still have homes and businesses without power.  It has been reported that 70,000 people are without electricity at the moment.  We have been asked by our mayor to use as little electricity as possible, so as to avoid more power outages and rolling blackouts.  So I am using my sewing machine as little as possible.  But I do have some blocks to show you.  Here a few more 16-patch blocks.  I have been cutting more strips.  That doesn't use electricity.

There is more rain on the way.  But I have lots of hexies to add to my basket quilt, so I am
fine!

That's Just Me, Ranting

I went down into the ravine this morning.  The sun was shining and the birds were singing.  The forest smelled so nice and foresty and the flowers were blooming everywhere.  I took some photos and said 'Hello' to others who were enjoying the quiet solitude of the woods.  Then I came upon a grassy area of Morningside Park, where there are picnic tables set up, a splash pad for children and washroom facilities for everyone.  It's a wonderful place for a picnic and I have been there with students and family alike.  But what I saw this morning made my blood boil.

Garbage everywhere, left by some messy picnickers.  Maybe they were rained out, but I think the rain would have announced itself long before it started to fall.  Surely they could have put their garbage into the cans provided.  You can see some in the distance, perhaps 50 meters or so away.

They had even left their table cloths.   And stuff on the tables, charcoal brickets and even the hibachi's they used to cook their meal.

Here is a bag, already to go into the trash, but they left it under a picnic table.  The yellow bag is from nofrills, and I know it says, 'We won't be beat', but I am reading 'Don't be neat'.

This was not a small party.  There had to have been many people enjoying themselves.  So why did they leave such a mess?  I can only scratch my head.  The most ironic thing about it all was that on the south side of the tables were eight more garbage and recycling cans, only a few steps away.

I am sure the park's staff will clean this mess up.  Probably if I had come by again in the afternoon it would have looked as if no one had been there.  But who pays for that?  Me, I guess, as a tax payer.

Didn't our mothers teach us to be neat?  To clean up our own messes?  It's such a small act of human decency.   And it only takes a few minutes.  When I was a Girl Guide leader I taught my girls to take nothing from nature and only leave a foot print.  I think the saying goes, 'Take only photos and leave nothing but a footprint'.  But even that might be too much if the area is a sensitive one.  But take as much garbage out as you can carry.  If everyone did this the world and our parks would be a better place.

Last year my DD took her class to this park as part of a 'clean up our waterways'.  I wrote about it here.  No wonder they collected so much garbage they could barely carry it all.

I\ll get off my soapbox now.  If we don't all do our part, the world will not be worth living in.

This and That

I had wanted to go out this morning, but it is raining, again!  When is this wet weather going to end?

Thank you to everyone who voted for my miniature paper pieced quilt last weekend.  I got 26 votes, not enough for a win, but I'm happy with that.

I also hope that all my friends to the south of us had a great Fourth of July yesterday.

Sorry, I have been missing in action this week.  Monday was a holiday, but that should not have made much difference.  Every day is a holiday for me.  LOL  Then on Wednesday I had a dentist appointment.  Since it only involved putting a filling back in and the fact that I was totally done by 9:00 am, shouldn't have made any difference either.  I guess the thing that bugged me the most this week was trying to locate my photos on my computer.  You see, I sort of, inadvertently, deleted them.  Doh!  How I did that I have no idea.  But they were all gone.  Then last night I was trying different things and I found them on Picassa.  Have no idea how that happened.  Now I have to figure out how access them.

I will now sort of back track over the past week and show you what's been going on around here.  Here is my design wall on Monday.

I am pretty happy with it and think I will sew it together today.  It now measures about 44 in. by 60.5 in.  I may add one more row to the sides and one more row to the bottom.  I'll see how it goes.

I have also been working on another scrappy quilt.  This is a 16-patch.  I have been making these blocks whenever I have a spare moment.  Not too many of those around here, but I do have about 14 blocks done.  Here are 10 of them sewn together.

Now onto Wildflower Wednesday.
The flower for this week was one of the ones I lost.  Actually I found it, but can't figure out how to get to it.  So I have decided to show you the plant, Yarrow.  This plant grows everywhere.  It likes direct sun and fertile ground, but is also happy is less perfect conditions.

This one is growing in my backyard.  I have no idea how it got there.  Maybe I planted it many years ago.  It has soft feathery leaves and that is the reason why it is still in my garden.  One of my old cats, Tobicat, loved to sleep on this feathery plant when the temperatures sky rocketed in the summer.  In fact, we buried his ashes under this plant.  It has great sentimental value and we will never remove it, but I did trim it back a bit this spring because it was getting out of hand.

Yarrow is a very useful plant.  It has been used for food.  The leaves can be eaten like spinach or cooked  in soups.  Plus it has a huge range of medicinal uses.  It has been used as a diuretic, a blood tonic and to treat nosebleeds and menstrual disorders.  Early Europeans took it into battle to treat wounds.  Native Americans used it to treat toothaches and head colds.  A poultice was applied to burns and a tea was made to reduce fever and aid in restful sleep.  And if you could ask Tobicat, he would tell you it makes a wonderful cool, soft bed to nap on.

The botanical name for Yarrow is, Achillea millefolium.  It is in the Asteraceae family.  I also have some light pink ones in my garden and a yellow one which I bought this year.  It is in the front garden and I couldn't get a photo because it meant walking on the grass and that is still difficult for me to do.

My garden is spectacular this year.  I guess it's all that rain we've been getting!  I love this yellow lily.  The colour is so bright and cheerful.

And my first day lily opened this morning.  It is a peach coloured single blossom one.  I love it!  You can see the lavender in the background.  Also very pretty and aromatic.

That's about all for this week.  Wishing everyone a fantastic weekend!

Happy Canada Day!

Wishing a Happy 146th Birthday to my favourite Country, Canada!  

Hope everyone has a terrific day. 

Please Vote for Me

Edited at 9:00pm.  I apologize if anyone was confused about the link to the Quilting Gallery. Apparently it was not up and running until now.  Please try again if you have come back to my post. It works now.  You'll have to scroll down to the thumbnail photos.  But you can now see the quilts and you can vote on them.

When I realized the Quilting Gallery was showing paper pieced quilts this week, I decided to enter a little quilt I finished several years ago.  This is the first paper pieced quilt I have ever finished.

The quilts that are submitted to this weekly gallery are always amazing.  Go over there and just take a look around.  It is truly eye candy.  Of course you can vote for any of them that you like.  But I would really appreciate it if you vote for mine.  LOL  I have never done this before.


As for my Friday finish...  Well, there isn't one.  It was just too hot to sew this week.  And I had company for the first part of it.  Then there were the get togethers with friends.  Just too much to do in one week.  But I do have something to show you.  I joined Em's Scrap Happy Summer 2013.  I plan to finish a lot of UFOs this summer.  Here is the first one I am working on.  Only a couple of rows to go.

When my DD returns my cutting table, (she borrowed it for her party last night) I will sandwich it and quilt it and show it finished - as soon as I can.

Wildflower Wednesday

Very busy!  Tons of stuff going on around here.  We had visitors from Germany spend a few days with us.  Then yesterday I went out to Ajax Downs for lunch with a couple of friends from the last school I worked at.  It was nice to see them again.  We sat by a window and watched the horse races.  It was also my DH's birthday and the phone never stopped ringing with birthday well-wishers.  Today I have to make two batches of pizza dough in my bread maker for my DD.  She wants to serve pizza as an appetizer at her staff's year-end party tomorrow.  I am also trying to work on a few quilty things, but there just doesn't seem to be much time for that.  I joined Em's Scrap Happy Summer 2013.  As if I need an excuse to sew scraps together!  LOL

But on with the program...  Today's wildflower is the Canada Anemone.  This is fitting because next Monday is July 1st, also known as Canada Day in these parts.

The biological name for this plant is Anemone Canadensis.  It is in the Ranunculaceae, better known as the, buttercup family.  There is also a shorter version of this species called a Wood Anemone, but it is much smaller.  The Canada anemone bears pretty white flowers.  These are not true flowers because this plant lacks petals.  But it does have 5 white, petal-like sepals.  The leaves are whorled on the stem and are deeply cut and stalkless.  The flowers rise above the leaves to about 20 inches.

These plants spread by rhyzomes and seeds.  It is a native plant and was used by aboriginal people as an astringent, an eye wash and a cleanser for wounds and sores.  It blooms from May through July and is always a pretty sight in damp forests.

Now back to the tasks at hand.  The weather has been unsettled and unbearably hot and humid here the past few days.  Today the sun is shining brightly.  Hopefully the worst is over and things will cool down a bit and become more comfortable.

Monday - A Trip Through the Highland Creek Ravine

I know this is Monday and I should be showing you what I am going to work on this week, but I have nothing to show.  I plan to finish a few more things from the past couple of weeks.  It is hot and sticky in Toronto today.  The temperature will go up to 32C with the humidex at over 40C.  I plan to do some handwork because my sewing room will be too hot.

So for today I will take you on a scooter ride through our closest ravine.  I took this ride a few days ago in order to buy the last of my annuals at a local garden centre.

I started my journey along Lawrence Avenue.  There was not a lot of traffic, but you get the idea.  This is looking east.

I took a photo looking down into the ravine from the bridge.  It was a good thing I did because I did not get a shot of the hill going down into the ravine.  It is quite steep and it was all I could do to control my scooter.  This shot is facing north.  I went south in order to get to the garden centre.

The bridge has many huge concrete 'legs' to hold it up.  Graffiti artists just can't resist painting them.  This was the nicest, in my opinion.

The ravine is a wonderful place to ride through.  The path is paved and goes through the forest with the river in one side.  There are many bridges and views.  I love it!

These trees have fascinated me this spring.  They sport long, white clusters of flowers that resemble wisteria.  They even smell like wisteria.  I have no idea what they are.  They seem to have been planted where they are.  Does anyone have any ideas?

This is the path, coming up to a bridge.

The river meanders along.

This area has some high bluffs.  This is what makes this park area so pretty.

The path is surrounded by trees.  And wild flowers.  And all kinds of shelf fungus.  And even some animals.

This is a view of the Lawrence Avenue bridge, from below.  I was on my way back when I took this.

Then coming out of the ravine this is a photo of the bridge, looking west.

Hope you have enjoyed my little journey.  So much wild stuff, so close to home.  Living in Scarborough is often criticized and discouraged, but for me it is the best!

Finished on Friday

I got a couple more pillows done.  I have a few more to do.  Hopefully I will have them finished by next Thursday evening when my DD is having her staff over for a year-end get-together.  The cushions on her couch were looking very sad, so I decided to make some new ones for her.

Here is the back of the squares one.

I also finished a little table runner that I had started a couple of years ago.  It doesn't have much contrast, but I think it will look okay on her kitchen table.  (It's round)

I don't know if I will continue with these pillows next week.  But I will work on them until they are finished.

Wildflower Wednesday

My post is a little bit late today.  I had to recharge my camera's battery before I could download any pictures.

Today's wildflower is the Ox-eye Daisy.  This common wild daisy grows just about everywhere and I am sure you have all seen it before.   It is also known as a White Daisy or Field Daisy.  The flowers are borne at the top of long stems.  They have white rays with a yellow centre and a scent that is not liked by everyone.

The Ox-eye Daisy is in the aster family.  Its botanical name is Leucanthemum vulgare.  This plant is an alien and was introduced by pioneers.  It reproduces itself by seeds as well as through a vigorous rhizomatus system.  In some areas they have become an invasive species and are sometimes a nuisance to farmers.  Although they are a short-lived perennial, they are difficult to control with herbicides.  Cows don't like the taste of them and will shun pastures with daisies, giving the plants more opportunity to spread.

But I love these little flowers and can't wait for them to bloom.  I think I will go out again tomorrow and pick a small bunch to decorate my kitchen table.

Show it Monday, Make it and Finish it Friday

I have been busy.  Not much sewing has been done lately, but I plan to change that.  My garden is completely planted and now there is just some weeding to do each week.  In the meantime, I will continue to work on my Finish it Friday project from last week.  I have several more pillows to do and another project if I have time.  Yeah, like that's going to happen!

Here are some peonies from my garden.  We had a lot of rain the last few days, so I picked these before they could be destroyed.  Aren't they amazing?  My house smells wonderful!

Finish it Friday - Sort of....

Wow!  This was not an easy assignment.  I thought it would be a cinch, but NOT!  I did manage to finish one little pillow.  And another should be finished today.

I had thought to make a few more, but that did not happen.  I went over to Fabricland on Tuesday to buy some pillow form.  When I got to the cash, the woman asked me why I was buying them 'now'.  I said I needed them for a project I wanted to finish on Friday.  She asked if I could wait until Thursday  because they were going on sale - 50% off!  How could I turn that down?

So I waited until yesterday to buy the forms.  But it rained all morning and even though I went over to Fabricland on my scooter in the afternoon, I didn't get home until supper time.  So I was only able to finish one of the pillows.  It is 14 inches square, but I think it is kind of cute and I hope my DD does too.  I am making these for her.

The other pillows will hopefully be 'Finished Next Friday'.

Wildflower Wednesday

For the past few weeks I have noticed some beautiful plants growing along the highway and in waste areas.

I had always thought that they were a wild phlox, but after taking some photos and looking at the flowers more closely, I realize that these plants are called 'Dames Rocket'.  You see, Phlox flowers have five petals and Dames Rocket only has four.

They come in many colours, from white to pink to lavender and purple.  The interesting thing is that they are in the Mustard Family.  Seeds are produced in a similar manner as other mustard plants.  The botanical name for them is Hesperis Matronalis.  Hesperis means a tall herb with fragrant flowers. and Matronalis means belonging to a married woman.

Dames Rocket was brought to North America by early settlers from Europe.  In some areas it is considered an invasive species, only slightly less noxious than Garlic Mustard which I showed you a couple of weeks ago.    But I just love the looks of this plant in wild areas.  It blooms in spring when there is not much else in bloom.  It is colourful and smells terrific.  And it is thought to be useful in the treatment of some forms of cancer.  What more could you ask for?

Make it Monday - For Friday

I have decided to be a copycat.  Marilyn of Marilyn's Maze has been showing a photo of some fabric on Monday that she intends to make into something gorgeous by Friday.  I love her posts!  So I decided to do something like that, not every week, but just for a couple of weeks while I decide what I am going to finish.  I have so many projects on the go right now and our guild is having a quilt show next year, so I am sure that won't be difficult.

So this is how it works.  I show you some fabric that I intend to use.  Here is some, but I may add some more from my stash or take some away.  I haven't really decided yet.  Then on Friday I will show you my finished project.  So don't forget to come back then and see what I have made.

Wednesday Wildflower and Some Playing Around

I drove my scooter into the ravine yesterday and discovered this patch of Virginia Waterleaf plants.

This plant is native to a large area of eastern North America.  The flowers on these plants were white, but they can be light blue or light purple too.  The leaves develop white patches and look like water marks, hence the name of Waterleaf.  Its biological name is Hydrophyllum virginianum, which literally means waterleaf of Virginia.  The leaves are edible as a salad when young.  They become bitter with age.  The Native Peoples used the roots to make a tea to treat diarrhea and dysentery.  The leaves were chewed to heal mouth sores and cracked lips.

Now that I am finished the baby quilts that were on my list, I have had some time to 'make fabric', my favourite pastime.

I have no idea what I am going to do with these blocks - maybe make another bag or a scrappy quilt.  What do you think Mimi?

"I think you have too much time on your hands.  Meow!"

I wish I had more hours in the day.  Today I am planning to make a batch of strawberry-rhubarb jam, as well as buy a few more sunshine plants for several pots that have no plants in them yet.  I also have about a hundred new members' names to add to our guild's membership list.  Ah, the joys of being on the executive.  And of course there are the usual chores - the dishes and mess in the kitchen, laundry, watering of plants, both inside and out.  Jeez, I'm tired already.

Sew long for now.

Another Finish!

Yippeeee!  I finished another baby quilt.  Another 'just in time', for the week, the month and the baby shower that is being held on Sunday.

I used lots of scraps on this one, as well as a piece of colourful focus fabric featuring reptiles.

I found some bright, striped fabric in my stash and used it for the binding.  I am happy to get this one done.  Now it is time to work on some summer projects.

And this is the first poppy to bloom in my garden.  Love the colour of this one!

I am linking up with 'Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop' and Crazy Mom Quilts.

Have a great weekend!