Livin' La Needle Loca

 ...and I'm enjoying a little alone time.  The Husband is off on a camping trip, so the cats and I are hanging out in the studio. The garden hasn't changed much since last week, but we do have some pink hibiscus now. We've been noticing that with the summer heat, some of the rooms that are stuffy. We have to keep some of the rooms closed a lot of the time because of the cats. They love to go in and knock things off of the counter.  Canela likes to go into the bathrooms and "sing" because her voice echoes so nicely. The studio is closed up after 5:30 pm and doesn't open again until I open it in the morning.  I did an experiment in the studio. I researched diffusers and found a company that uses natural scents, based on essential oils. I'm scent sensitive to perfumes and other scents that are chemical-based, but natural scents don't bother me as much. I bought an ocean and sea salt scent and put it in the studio. I ...

 ...and it's been a productive quilting week.   I've added machine quilting to all three of the quilts in process: Road to Chaos, Herding Cats, and La Cat-trina. Next, I need to attack the quilting within the blocks. I've also been able to do a little stitching on Starwoman and the latest mermaid. The garden is doing well. The Husband continues to add new flowers to keep it looking good. We have orange hibiscus Globe amaranth Double-delight roses and black-eyed Susans.

 ...and it's a quick one. In our garden, the gladiolas continue to pop up. This pink and yellow one is particularly lovely: In the studio, I'm still wending my way through boxes of packed tools and stash. I finally got a delivery date for our bookcase/Murphy bed combo (next week) so I know that we can soon get rid of the POD in our driveway! It's been there since the end of September. I'm tired of parking my car on the street!

 ...blog and run. This week, it's all from the garden. We have baby persimmons: Lantana: A gladiola And a yellow dahlia.

...and there continues to be progress in the studio. We moved in some furniture and unpacked the handspun and spinning fiber.  I spend the good part of two days searching for my sewing thread. I finally found it and was able to start working on one of the quilts. Yay! In the garden, the squirrels have decimated the apricots. I was able to eat a few of them. Score 1 for the squirrels. I'm glad that I took photos of them when I did. Our garden path: We have clematis blooming: Society garlic: Calibrachoa and purslane: And lots of blackberries:

...I've been a little busy in the studio! First, some eye candy. There are dahlias blooming: Hydrangeas: and the Blenheim apricots are almost ready! Hope we get some before the squirrels completely strip the tree! In studio news, we received our new IKEA Kallax bookcase and assembled it. We moved it and the Expedit bookcase together and I was able to load my fabric. Hooray! I also was able to move the photo boxes containing small tools, craft supplies, and office items into the room. The space above the bookcases are perfect for them. Yesterday, we built the new cabinet that will house the cat litter box in the studio. It has a door that will hide the box from view when they are not in there. It also has an odor control feature. The studio is my biggest WIP right now, but here's the WIP update that I missed posting on Wednesday. WIPs Roll Call Worked On: Morgana (cross stitch) Working up the torso to the upper body. Studio Star...

...and a first look at the studio! Technically, it's all eye candy to me but we'll start with the garden first. We harvested the first blackberries of the season: And the dragon fruit has set flowers: The Husband wasn't sure whether these flowers would get properly pollinated. They are usually pollinated by moths and we don't have a lot of those. The Husband pollinated these two at night when the flowers were fully opened. When the third flower emerged, he noticed that a fat black bee was on the job. Good to know for the next season! On to the studio...while it's not quite finished, it's finished enough that I could take photos. The only things remaining to be done are installing the retractable screen for the slider and some clean-up. Before and After of the main area:   Before and after of the alcove area   Before and after of the slider   Before and after of the outside   The bathroom! I can't wait to reload my stuff in there!...

 ...and there are more flowers! The Husband bought me a few more flowers for Mother's Day. Between the new plants and the exzisting plants, we have flowers every where. New to the garden are Raspberry Lemonade nemesia: and Orange jessamine: Our primroses are going strong: and the blanket flowers are back: I also finished the Flock of Emotional Support Chickies [ Ravelry ]: Specs: Started 5/8/2026 Finished 5/11/2026 Emotional Support Chicken® Little Chickie by Annette Corsino Yarn: Caron Simply Soft Paints in Springbrook; Loops & Threads Soft & Shiny Ombres in Shimmer; Loops & Threads Soft Classic in Peach Tree Multi and Bluebird Multi; Trendsetter Yarns Tonalita in Rio

 ...it's been an uneventful week.  Our shower door arrived and the countertop guy came and took measurements for the bathroom vanity. That's about all that's happened for the studio this week. I'm itching to get in there! The garden is doing well. Here's our garden path as of this morning: < The calibrachoa are doing well: And the Love-in-the-Mist are going strong: 

 ...and things are getting closer in the studio! Things are continuing to bloom in the garden. The nasturtiums are still going strong: The nemesia is popping up: The mock orange continues to bloom: And the Blenheim apricots are beginning to get some color.

 ...that week went fast! We had a couple of fire drills that sucked up some of our time.  For the studio, we had to quickly find flooring after we determined that the contractor thought we ordered the floor and we though they did. After finding our that our first choice (floors matching the rest of the house) would take 5 weeks to come in, we found another flooring that will work. It's in the same color range that we wanted and we were able to get it by today. Whew! The second, more worrying problem was a plumbing back-up that happened yesterday. We had Service Champions replace our old furnace and install a tankless water heater in the last 3 years. As a result, we joined their MVP program, which give us some free services during the year and reduced costs on some services and appliances. They were able to come out yesterday and snake the main and run a camera to check for issues. Whew! Today, I caught up with a bunch of photo editing that I...