Summer activity

Things are heating up here in the desert; we’ve been in triple digits for weeks now, with no relief in sight. Luckily, air conditioning is everywhere here: cars, homes, stores, theaters. In fact, I usually have to take a light sweater with me to many places, since the AC gets turned far too low for comfort. What to do when the weather is so warm? The mere thought of a quilt — other than, perhaps, a very small one — is enough to start the sweat glands working overtime. Baking? Forget heating up the kitchen! What to do?

I’m doing a lot of reading right now, for one thing. But I also happened upon a weekly challenge for machine embroidery, and it’s giving me just enough of a stitching “fix” to be very enjoyable. The blocks come from this site, and there’s a Yahoo group, too, for sharing comments and photos. Each week brings a new block design, the theme of which is a road trip, though we don’t yet know exactly where we’re “going”.

I apologize for the edge of the clip in the first photo; the block simply didn’t want to stay put without it. But isn’t this an adorable touring car?

The second block gives our first named destination — and I’m sure I’d need some anti-nausea medicine if I were actually a passenger on this beautiful ship! I wonder what our next destination will be …. Of course a quilt will be the final product of this adventure, so now I’m wondering how in the world anyone does the actual quilting on embroidered blocks!