It was a stunningly gorgeous day here yesterday so walking about taking photos was a wonderful treat. This is one of the trees in front of the building, which still has green leaves.

These little pink roses are still blooming along the walkway up to the front door.

The mums are looking wonderful and rich.

It seems almost every high-rise building around here has planters out front. This is one of the planters across the street.

This is another, and one of my favourites.

One of the plants in that planter:

Another of the plants:

This is my favourite of the plants in that planter — these always fascinate me and I love that they last well into the late fall.

The flowers in yet another planter:

And Lester, with his favourite toy:

All summer I’ve shown various pictures of the roof garden but have totally forgotten about the front. This is one of the areas in front of our building.

These are still blooming — and so pretty to walk up the pathway and see!

This is on the other side of the walkway up to the front door.

They’ve just planted these mums. The colour is absolutely glorious!

This is yet another part of the little garden areas that line the walkway up to the front door.

As is this — with more of the little roses.

All the rain this summer made for some very green grass.

Walking up the ramp to the building, we noticed that one of the trees had tons of these on it. I have no idea what kind of tree it is but am guessing these are some kind of seed pods? They’re really interesting looking.

On either side of the front entrance, there are two urns with plantings. The plantings change throughout the year. This is the current one.

And, once we get home, look at this — one of the boys waiting for us!

It is somewhat cooler here, particularly at night, so I thought I’d get back to quilting the baby bow-tie quilt. Got about two threads done and then Lester decided it looked really interesting.

I could finish the area I was working on but, unless I was willing to move him, nothing more was going to get quilted! And I was definitely not willing to move him. This is going to be wonderful — as the nights get cooler I can have the quilt draped over my legs and no doubt the odd kitty visitor. Cozy!

This arrived in the mail yesterday! My summer Four Seasons Quilt Swap from Susan of Scooter’s Qreations I absolutely love it!! I believe it’s from a Pacific Rim Quilt Co. pattern — one that I’ve periodically drooled over! As soon as I opened the envelope and realized what the pattern was, I was so excited! If you click on the picture to view the enlarged version, you can see some of the beading and embellishments. I am thrilled!!

The fabrics are absolutely yummy — definitely my kind of fabrics/colours! Thank you so much, Susan!

Susan named it Pink Lemonade — and it suits it perfectly. The backing is wonderful too and there are some small beads all around the label.

In yet more swap news, I got my partner assignment for the Another Little Quilt Swap. I am going to have so much fun with this! I’ve been to her blog already and the ideas are just flying through my mind!

We got this picture of Lester last night — with his favourite toy, a little beige mouse, sort of perched on the edge of the kitty bed.

These mostly black and white shirting prints have been sitting for a long time, waiting for me to figure out just what I want to do with them. I can’t seem to settle on any design and, as I am really not into the 1800’s repro prints, what fabric to use with them.

I keep thinking about pairing them with some bright batiks and seeing where that leads me or perhaps I should do some stars using mostly black prints and the shirting prints with some bright yellow or red in a few unexpected spots and make a quilt along the lines of this one on Carpe Quiltem’s blog. While I have some ideas, none of them are really inspiring me to cut into these and start using them.

Help!! I just cannot figure out in what to use these — and I want to work with them! Any and all opinions welcome!

Sometimes I think Smudge looks like a wise little brown owl.

As requested by Peg in this post, I am posting photos of the 3 projects I finished as a result of her Finish Five by End of July challenge.

First was the teddy bear’s quilt.

Then the orchid quilt for the Four Seasons Quilt Swap.

And finally, the one that just squeaked in under the wire — my blue and white Texas Star quilt.

Were it not for Peg’s challenge, I’m relatively sure that the blue and white would not have been finished. Thank you, Peg — it was a lot of fun and so great to have three projects finished.

I think I may have posted this photo of Lester before but I just cannot resist posting it again. I love the look on his face in this one!

What did I do this weekend? Worked on the blue and white Texas Star quilt. It’s quilted and the binding is attached to the front. I’m hoping to finish the binding and have this done in time to qualify as my third finish for Peg’s Finish 5 in July challenge.

I’m very tempted to do this pattern again but this time in lots of colours for the star points. It is so easy to put together, thanks to Inklingo, and I think it would really be a fun quilt if done in brights. Next time, if I do make it a next time, I’m using a woven in white on white or cream for background. I would have loved to have hand quilted this one but that white on white is next to impossible to needle. It was bad enough to hand piece; I cannot imagine what it would have been like to try to quilt through it!

Some more work was done on the secret project as well, which I’m hoping can be unveiled this week.

Smudge took over the windowsill spot for a while this weekend.