June is bustin’ out all over

The heat and humidity are here, flowers are blooming, veggies are growing, and I can’t get enough sewing time. 

Ah, summer. While not yet officially here, all of its attributes are in place and I wrestle with which thing to do first. My heart wants to plant my butt in my studio, but Johnson grass is loving the new super soil we spread around the pollinator garden, so into the weeds I must go. 

On Monday morning at 7:19 am, the temp was 75°, but felt like 80°. My 45 minutes in the garden was muggy and sticky--sweat quickly hit my brow and under my boobs. Ugh. 

I looked on my iPhone at the weather ahead for the week, and determined that Wednesday would be the best day to spend quality time hoeing and pulling weeds. The temp at 7:00 am was 66°; the humidity level was not nearly what it was on Monday. Hubs and I got out there, pulled a bunch of weeds and got everything mulched in the south section. So much better! Thursday morning I was back at it with sore legs but kept moving and made progress. Today I’m taking the day off from weeding to do laundry. The following photos don't show much, but there's a lot of work in there and more to come:

North corner of the pollinator garden; we're basically just getting started. 
Drift roses, dwarf gardenia and blueberry bushes.

South corner of pollinator garden; Drift roses, hostas transplanted from the front yard,
denim and lace salvia, and butterfly bushes.

Veggies! Not shown are the herbs.

The Hubs and I are in talks about a greenhouse. It makes sense to both of us, but I have to overthink how big it should be, what exactly will we be doing in it and is it worth it for us? It will be placed on the southeast side of the yard which is the last section we will work on, and all of that needs to be worked out. I’m thinking this will be our big topic of discussion on our trip to Nashville this month. 

I really like this style—room for two butts!

I’m also working on the baby quilt for Vicki’s great-grandson. After creating the ScanNCut files for cutting, most of the fabrics were cut out on Monday and put on the design wall Tuesday. I have enlarged the pattern by 150%, and that’s the primary reason for creating the cutting files. I am also creating embroidery files for the different facial feature for each animal, and now that I have a reprieve from the original deadline of tomorrow (phew!). I may digitize the decorative stitch for the appliqués. I fused down everything yesterday so that may be a no-go, but I will digitize those files sometime in the future. Here’s where I am today:

The blue background appears darker in this photo than it appears IRL.

And here's the finished baby bib:

And the discussions about rearranging the studios continue. Hubs has cleared out most of the contents in the closet of the current cutting room--the closet will be outfitted to accommodate both of our computer work stations. It's rare when both of us are working on our computers at the same time, so I'm hoping this is a good idea. We've measured and remeasured many items to make sure they will fit where I want them to go. It will still be somewhat crowded, but the workflow will be considerably better than what I have now. My old cutting table is coming back to life as it was intended, and my current cutting table will be transformed into part of my new sewing cabinet. Bless the Hubs, he has some really great ideas when it comes to construction and workflow; I'm forever grateful for him and his patience with me, the linear thinker. My goal is to have all of this done before the new school year, which starts (for him) around August 1. I can't wait to show you progress photos, but our first goal is to get the computer workstations moved before we head to Nashville. 

I need to get busy and work on this baby quilt! More yard work looms! Stay hydrated! Go make!