Pink Lanterns--finished quilt

I'm a little slow in posting this finish because I haven't yet heard back from the recipient.  But it was to be delivered by a family member, so I'm thinking that she has received it safely.   I just heard that she received the quilt last weekend,  and that she can FEEL the love that went into it when she looks at the quilt that is keeping her warm.  So glad ! GLORY TO GOD for the ability that HE has blessed ME with......I could not do this ministry without HIM.  This is my ministry ..... that's all.  It is not ENOUGH.  I could never do ENOUGH; my God is so wonderful.

These are not the best photos, but they were the best I could get at the time.

I called this an original design, and that's sort of silly.  Most variations of block and design configurations have been used and reused since quiltmaking began, and probably SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE has used the courthouse steps blocks in just this manner.

What I meant to say is that I didn't see anything put together in just this way, and I came up with my own measurements, setting, and coloration.  When you've been quilting as long as I have, you just pull from experience, I think.

Anyway, I used about 6 or 7 different pinks for the top, along with one consistent gray print fabric.  I can't remember, and usually don't note, designers names or lines of fabric, so I can't help you there.  I just buy what I can get a good price on, and use it as the mood or design dictates.  It seems like the gray fabric's designer's name was Jay McCarroll or something like that, and I got yardage of the fabric at an outrageously good price online several years ago.  It has little plain and polka-dot, gray and pink tomatoes all over it.

One of the fabrics had messages of love on it, and I tried to fussy-cut it as reminders that Ruhama is wrapped in love when she's using this quilt.

Sorry about the poor lighting, but this was the only shot that showed how big the quilt is compared to a twin-sized bed.

The quilt finished at about 46 x 68 after quilting/washing/drying.  I machine-quilted it on my old black-headed Singer, Model 15.  Using a walking foot, I quilted in the ditch on all of the pink strips (the lanterns), and then I free-motion-quilted the remainder of the quilt in a medium-sized meandering pattern.  Boring, perhaps, but the meandering always gives me that wonderful puckery look that I want in a laundered quilt.

I guess I'm out of practice, because after 4 days of machine-quilting, especially 2 afternoons of holding the arms up level with the machine-bed for the meandering, I could HARDLY MOVE my right arm and neck on Friday morning.  I was CRYING in pain !  But time and Tylenol 3 took care of that, praise be to God.

The back of the quilt is a solid colored flannel, a soft medium-pink, pieced in the middle.  And, then, I added one final heart, for the label.

Time for some catching up !

This has been a very strange year, weatherwise, it seems to me.  Spring was SO LONG in coming, and our August weather was so very mild, even cool at times.  And now for these first two weeks of September, we have had what daddy used to call 'dog days'.......almost unbearable hot for Tennessee folks..atleast an old one like me.  Of course, having lived in Oklahoma for 30 years, where summer temperatures stayed in the 100's for weeks at a time, I feel like a wimp complaining about these 90's !

On the quilting front, I've had to take a short hiatus.

Original design, I call it Pink Lanterns.

I finished piecing a 48" x 72" quilt top the week before last, basted it on Saturday, and then, spent many hours on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in machine-quilting it.  I am happy to say that I finished the quilting and got the binding cut.  But on Friday morning, I woke up with almost unbearable pain in my right shoulder blade and could barely use my right arm.  I mean, it was CRYING PAIN.

So, knowing that I had doctors' appointments coming up this week, I have refrained from trying to work on that quilt OR the hand-quilting project until after I see the doctors.  I started with a visit to a neurologist yesterday for problems I've been having with memory loss, confusion, and a weird thing where I go to write or type something and I leave off the first letter of a word !  It doesn't happen often, but it has happened atleast a half dozen times over the last few months, and I thought that I was developing early-onset Alzheimers .

The good report is that the neurologist thinks that I just need to get more sleep.  Of course, sleeping has been an issue for a long time, but especially so since my tumor removal and the swallowing problems.  I will try Melatonin to start with, and if needed, she will prescribe something stronger.

But first, I am going to see a cardiologist this Friday morning, because I have been having what I call 'crashes', where I get dizzy, short of breath, and my blood pressure has plummeted as low as seventy-something over 45 !  I was too dizzy to write it down, so I can't remember the exact amount of the top number.  The general doctor I saw ran an ECG and said that I might have an enlarged heart, so he has sent me to this guy on Friday.  I've had the 'crashes' atleast 3 times now, so I want to find out how to get past this.  Let's hope he can help me understand.........and the LORD will do the rest !

The yard work has suffered while I'm dealing with all of this, and the ground is dry and hard.  I have put most of my effort into my little shade garden,WHICH incidentally receives A LOT OF SUN this time of the year, I notice !

  Anyway, I planted Caladiums and Coleus out there, and have bought 3 more Hostas that need to be put into the ground.  I also need to find good shady places for the Hostas that I planted under the Oak trees in my side-yard.  The Oaks seem to be sucking up whatever moisture is offered through rain or my watering sessions, and the Hostas do not look very happy.  But the 'shade' garden looks good at the back where it gets the most shade.

 The Seven Steps to Heaven have started blooming.
 They and the Asters are usually my latest blooms of the year.  The Asters have sent volunteers to several places in the yard, but only have a few sporadic blooms showing right now.  I will try to wait until the 'bushes' are covered with blooms before I share a photo of them.

This is the first time that I have attempted to grow Dahlias.  I bought a package of 3 roots when Walmart marked them down, and I almost rotted them by overwatering the pot in which I had planted them.  Two survived, but only one has  grown tall and put out buds.  But, boy, WHAT BUDS !

I counted 9 buds on it, and 3 of them have bloomed, thus far.  I love the fact that the blooms are SO long-lasting !   The first one to bloom has been in bloom for over a week and still looks good.  I wasn't thrilled with the color, thinking it looked like a funeral flower, but the hubby loves them, and I've grown accustomed to them, shall we say?

Hubby was also tickled to see this little volunteer Morning Glory show up in a window box that was used to plant some of my Gladioli bulbs.  It has twined itself around some of the Obedient Plant (Seven Steps).

And, finally, I was able to grow a Moonflower in a pot on the back deck.  The bigger plant, that has bloomed for atleast 3 of the four summers before this, just didn't show up this year.  So I planted this one in a pot and it has been slow progress, but yesterday I got my first bloom.  I have trouble photographing white flowers with my "point and shoot camera", especially against the white trailer wall, but I wanted to document it anyway.  That dead looking fern, planted with it, was transplanted there after finding it the woods, but the new growth got broken off......I am hoping it will try again, so I've left it.

So, that's my catch-up post.......sorry for the length and picture overload !  It takes so long to do this, that I just let it go for other priorities.  Love to all, and God bless you !