Roses and Grandmothers Flower Garden

Just looked at my blog and realized it has been a long time since I have posted anything. I thought when I started "blogging" I would be adding something everyday or so. Think I was waiting for something profound to happen or needed to wait and post only quilty things. Maybe I will just post a note about what ever is going on that day instead of waiting to post quilt news as it seems right now during the summer I don't get much quilting done.

My flower beds are looking pretty good now with flowers blooming here and there. I do love flowers and have planted quite a few. I planted some bushes a couple of years ago when I got the beds going but they are very small. I didn't want to spend a lot on larger bushes so went cheap and got the tiny ones at Wallmart.

I try to plant a few perennials each year and plant annuals between the little bushes, which are growing slowly. I figure by the time I don't want to have to take care of such a large area of flowers the bushes will be large enough there will not be space for flowers. Either that or I will have to hire a gardener to plant and pull weeds for me.

I had only one rose survive a year ago, it is a full peach rose with a wonderful scent - don't remember the name. This year it leafed out early and had multitudes of buds on it and I was so excited. A week ago it started blooming - Red and Peach roses. The buds were mostly red and two peach ones and am figuring part of the grafted rose died back to the hardy root stock which was an old fashioned red rose. There are two stems that have the larger peach roses on it. I hate to cut all the red ones back as it is really covered with red blooms and looks so nice - almost like a Knock Out rose.

Aren't they both pretty?

I did start quilting on my Grandmothers Flower Garden quilt named "Lady in Waiting" but it is slow going. Hand quilting takes me a long time and I am doing a lot of quilting on it. I do a lot of quilting on my miniatures as I want them to look like large quilts. I am quilting in the center of each 1/2" hexagon and think there are over 800 hexagons in the quilt besides the applique around the edge. I am hoping to get it finished to take with me to the Nebraska State Quilt Convention in Chadron the end of July to hang in the teachers display. I told them this is the quilt I would be bringing so need to get moving to get it done in time. Don't know why I do things like that to myself. Should have just planned to take a quilt already finished. Below are a couple of photos of what the quilting on this piece looks like so far.

All for now and I will try to do better from now on.

Lynn