Carefree Garden

55.5" X 62.5"

I wanted to make my sister a quilt for a special birthday she was to celebrate in September. She loves her garden and spends lots of time working on making it beautiful. As I was browsing for ideas I came across a photo of a floral quilt made by a friend some years ago. My search was over. I thought it would be perfect - a garden she could enjoy all year long with no work involved.

I had lots of large florals and quite a few greens but to get more variety I asked for green donations from some quilting pals.


I made a 'window' to select the part of the print to use.
It's a very simple thing - cut 5" squares for the florals and 5.5" squares of greens for the half-square triangle units.





As I began to it up on my design wall I was disappointed. It looked like a chaotic mess but after analyzing the original photo I realized the dark side of each HST should point to the right. That positioning seemed to help and I kept on going.






Once it was all together I started stressing out about how to quilt it. It had to be done by machine with my time frame and I am not skilled at free motion work.I didn't really want to have someone else do it. It had to be all from me.

Here's a rough sketch of my general idea...  An overall design with a path (through the garden) and areas of 'the beds'. Sort of the idea of rows of crops in the fields.
I liked the simplicity of the idea - an overall design sort of influenced by some of the 'modern' quilts being made today. I felt so relieved. I could do this! I am very comfortable with a walking foot!  I used a mottled greenish variegated thread and after laying down the main divisions I eye-balled a little over 1" echo from those lines.

I usually don't remember to do this but I measured the top when completed, measured it again after quilting was done and then again after I washed it. No surprise - it got smaller but all loss was due to the quilting; 3" in width and 2" in length! This was very simple quilting. A more complex, denser design would take up even more. Remember to plan your bed quilt a few inches larger than you'd like in both directions.

We met for breakfast at a lovely restaurant on Lake Minnetonka which just happened to provide the perfect, leafy backdrop for a photo.

She was really thrilled with it.

She tells me she 'sleeps in the garden' every night now.