My garden quilt is finally finished!  I have to admit that I am proud of this quilt because so much work went into it as well as so much of my personality.  I designed each of the paper pieced blocks myself over a period of about a year and a half.  They are all available for sale in my Etsy shop and Craftsy shop. The “pick violets” block is a free download from my Craftsy shop!

In my last post, I asked for quilting advice. I wanted something minimal so that I didn’t have to stitch through the blocks too much. A reader named Marci was kind enough to suggest a quilting design found on A Few Scraps blog. It’s basically a series of slightly wavy lines and every third line has an occasional leaf. The lines echo the leaf shape. I spaced my lines fairly far apart in keeping with my minimalist quilting plan and placed my leaves in spots where they didn’t interfere with the quilt block design. I think it works and I look forward to trying this pattern again with more tightly spaced lines for all over texture on another quilt sometime.

I’ve had the backing of this quilt planned from the time I designed the first block!  I wanted to use this panel by Blend Fabrics that I got at Sew Me A Song along with the print below the panel. Both are designs by Cori Dantini from her Beauty is You collection. I also used a Denise Schmidt Hope Valley print.  The binding is a new DS Quilts print from JoAnn Fabrics.

You know I had to have a little fun with my quilt pictures. I brought the quilt to a nursery a couple of doors down from my house and asked permission to take pictures near their old, glass greenhouse.  My son tried to hold the quilt for me but his arms gave out so I rested it in the open window there.

Then we wandered around a bit and found their collection of terracotta pots.  I had to capture an image with my “Pick Violets” block!  I love this shot.

And last but not least, I’ve been noticing this old blue pick up parked by the sunflower field at a farm stand in town for the past week or so.  The hope of getting this picture before they moved the truck or the flowers died was what pushed me to get the quilt finished!  I love, love, love this picture!  I grew up next door to this farm which makes it all the more special to me.