July is "Coming up Roses"

Wild Mountain Rose block from Sophie's quilt

The roses are all in bloom. In May, it looked as if 80% of our roses were killed by the weird weather last fall.  After June 21, when our cold wet Spring finally blew itself out and gave way to warm weather and sunshine, most of the roses began to perk up.  Several have come up from the root stock, but those old strong roots produce lovely dark red flowers.

The best news is that some of the oldest roses, both chronologically (the Peace rose is 12 feet tall and 55 years old) and historically (the two antique French roses are only three years old but the antique stock seems to be very hardy) yes, the oldest roses are the ones that have come back unharmed.  Late roses are so much better than no roses.

The season is about three weeks late here, so no cherries yet.  I can't complain much, though, since my cousin in Teton Valley, Idaho had lilacs for the Fourth of July. 

We had a great trip to Nevada and California for a family reunion.  The family visits were great, but absolutely the best part was driving over Tioga Pass into Yosemite. The high Sierras make me want to make quilts that are sky blue and cloud white. Some of the photos from Tenaya Lake will serve as color keys when I get to that quilt.

This is the "All the Colors in the Box" block I hand stitched on the trip over the mountains.  This version of the Dresden Plate is easy and fast.  I only worked on it when the scenery was not terribly exciting..  The Scanner bed is still too small for even this smaller plate.  No, its not a rainbow:  I didn't have any purple in the box.  These are colors I in my box of projects to consider making big fish of some of them.  More another day about the Big Fish.

Meanwhile, I am working on the patterns for the Wild Mountain Rose baby quilt (also known as Sophie's Rose) and the "Grampa Says I'm a Keeper" fish quilt.

This is the paper piecing pattern for the mini fish of "Grampa Says I'm a Keeper"