Pink Ice Block 28

Posted on July 14, 2010 by Quiltobsession

… got finished after all on Tuesday night after some quilt wrestling of Chintz Circles was accomplished. After doing more of the quilting, I think I’ve got a “route” mapped out so as to be able to avoid having quite so many threads to bury. Today and Thursday will be busy with work, but Friday and Saturday I plan to stay at the machine and keep going until the quilting is finished.

Two more Pink Ice blocks to go and then I’ll try a few of the 9-patch blocks to see if they will work as the setting block for the quilt.

Although it’s hot and humid again, Lester saw a few things out the window that he had to keep his eye on.

While Smudge was staying with his in warm weather, do as little as possible mode. He was awake — if you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can see one eye open watching to make sure he didn’t miss anything interesting.

Pink Ice Blocks 26 & 27

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Quiltobsession

Two more done, block 28 about half done and two full ones left to go. But nothing else is getting done this week other than the quilting on Chintz Circles. I realized on the weekend that I didn’t have enough time to hand quilt it, so removed the hand quilting I’d done and sorted out how I’d machine quilt it remembering, of course, that my machine skills are not great, and started on it Sunday night. The quilting will be intersecting circles to emphasize the circles created by the design. I got enough done Sunday night to realize I like how it’s turning out, so now it’s simply a matter of sitting at the machine and getting it done.

The back of one of the two completed Pink ice blocks.

Mr. Q.O. took this photo of a flower in a friend’s garden. I haven’t got a clue what it is, but I love the colour.

We had a couple of days of much less humidity, although it was still quite warm. They say the heat and humidity builds up again starting today and by midweek it sounds like we’ll be back to the extremely high heat and humidity.

Lester took advantage of the nicer temperatures and spent some time looking out the window.

As did Smudge.

Pink Ice Block 26

Posted on July 9, 2010 by Quiltobsession

… is partially stitched. Once the middle star and the 4 partial stars are put together, it’s nothing but lots of lovely continuous stitching which makes it a much quicker block to put together than it may appear. I may get it finished over the weekend, but this is the weekend that I will be devoting pretty well entirely to quilting Chintz Circles. I don’t know if I’ll get it finished this weekend, but I’m going to try. I’d like to get the binding on and wash it before next weekend so that we can take it to be photographed.

I think I’ve decided on how I’ll set these Pink Ice blocks — on point with perhaps 9-patch blocks. The back of block 26, so far:

Thursday was, as they had forecast, another incredibly hot, humid and smoggy day. Today is supposed to be somewhat cooler, with a humidex of about 33C (91F) which will feel a lot better. And we’re supposed to have thunderstorms and rain which I hope will clear out some of the smog.

There are a few lilies that are popping up here and there in the flower beds out on the roof garden. There’s a very pale coloured one which I think will open today or on the weekend.

Our Internet connection has been rather iffy this week, which makes me wonder if the power outage earlier this week had some effect on our ISP. However, by Thursday night it seemed to be better and, all of a sudden, missing blog comments showed up in my inbox Thursday night. Strange to have e-mails that are 2 or 3 days old appear suddenly like that, but I’m glad they did finally make it. Today and over the weekend I will catch up on replying to comments and visiting blogs.

Lester spent some time on the windowsill on Thursday.

While Smudge was lounging on the couch.

Pink Ice Block 25

Posted on July 6, 2010 by Quiltobsession

There are enough of these blocks done to make a lap quilt, depending how I set them. That said, I have the pieces ready to make five more of these which would make it a slightly better size — again, depending on how I set them. The blocks finish at 9″. They’ve been sitting for so long now that I think, although it’s a given that I’ll have trouble sticking to this, that I shall just focus on them for a week or ten days to get them all finished and ready to put together. Of course, this may well be because I’ve named the quilt Pink Ice and ice of any sort sounds very appealing at the moment with the heat wave. I’ve used so many various shades of pink and rose for the stars/partial stars that I may need to use a different colour when it comes to setting them. I’m leaning towards setting them on point.

The back:

I’m working on another POTC block now as, when I went through those left to be framed with the cream hexagons, I found a few that really don’t fit with the rest. But once that block is done I think I’ll start on the next Pink Ice block and try to stay focused so that these blocks at least get put together into a top, ready for quilting.

It was incredibly hot here on Monday. A temperature of 33C and a humidex of 44C (91F and 111F respectively) made it a bit like walking into a wall of heat when venturing outside. More of this all week until Friday when it should cool down a bit. On top of that, we have smog advisories which is typical for us with a heat wave. And just to top it off, huge parts of Toronto were affected by a blackout Monday afternoon as there was an explosion at a transformer station. Thankfully, we weren’t affected but I immediately thought of those with whom I used to work on a high floor in one of the skyscrapers. I cannot imagine walking down 45+ flights of stairs in this kind of heat in a building that had no air conditioning. The blackout occurred right around the time when people would begin to leave the office for the day.

The planters outside buildings around here are very bright and cheerful. This is one that’s in front of a building right across the street from us.