Quilt, cactus & Esperanza

I made an announcement at my quilt group that I was taking a hiatus from doing quilts for anyone else until September.  Well it seems that one lady had a grandson getting married and another one had a grandson graduating and another said she wasn't in a hurry, so if I didn't get hers done until September it was OK... oh yes, there is the two quilts my sister sent to me and of course the lap quilt for Beth.  Well, I finished quilting one of my sister's quilts a couple weeks ago, and the wedding quilt needed to be done last Friday, so I got that one done on Tuesday... she needed to have time to put the binding on.  The graduation quilt needs to be done before June 7th, so I figured I had time to squeeze in the one that I have had for about 3 months.

I had decided how I was going to quilt the blocks that are set on point back when I first received the quilt... which was 3 months ago.  I had it all figured for a continuous line.  Well I loaded the quilt on my frame the other day and when I looked at the block I knew I had to go to my drawing board to figure out how I did it with a continuous line.  It took some doing, but I got it done.  I meandered on the rest of the quilt, but this is the block (and 29 more) that I was able to get done with a continuous line.  I was able to finish this quilt on Saturday and I was very pleased with the results.  When I called the lady to tell her the quilt was done, she was really surprised.

A couple days ago when we were heading out, I noticed that the cactus I had put beside the driveway maybe three years ago has finally decided to show some blossoms.  Wow, are they pretty.

The cactus I planted back three years ago was just a couple paddles (not sure what the proper name is), but all you have to do is stick it in the ground and you would not believe how they proliferated.  Cactus is one thing I have no problem growing here, which is more than I can say for my garden.  My garden is doing OK, but as each day goes by I am convinced that I started too late and it is getting too hot already. The other plant (bush) I have been very successful with is a native plant called an Esperanza.  I thought I might have lost my big established Esperanza with the hard freeze we had this winter, but it is coming back and actually has started blossoming already.  It blossoms profusely with brilliant yellow trumpet blooms, right up until it freezes in November or December.

I may not be able to grow veggies yet, but I can sure enjoy the cactus and the Esperanza.

Hope you are enjoying the weekend.