It’s time to start Part 2 of the Whimsy Garden Sew-along! If you missed the first post for the sew-along, you can find it here.

For the next two weeks, we will be designing and sewing the first row of the Garden Whimsy Quilt.

This is the first row as sewn in the book, Petal + Stem. When I planned this book, I thought of the quilt layouts as garden plans. I am acting as your landscape architect, giving you the plan or layout for your garden. You get to choose which flowers you plant! The blocks in the book were carefully designed to mix and match, giving you the chance to personalize your design. There are four flowers in this row. You can either use the rectangle blocks in the book to replace the two square blocks, or choose any square flower block and square flower stem and insert them into the layout. The little snail could be removed and replaced with grass, or the free block that I will introduce later in this post. You have lots of options! If you go outside of the layout plan, keep in mind that your precut pieces will no longer work and the yardage requirements may be different. They were all based on you keeping to my plan but mixing it up by choosing your own plants!

Before you start sewing, make sure that you have enlarged your templates by 125% as noted in the book.

This is my completed first row! You can see that I used the Poker, Tulip and Petunia blocks. I used three shades of green for the foliage to add some interest, which I plan to mix together in my grass blocks in later rows. I replaced the grass block at the end of the row with my new, bonus pattern called Seedling.

Goals

Your goals for the next two weeks, are to choose your blocks, sew them, and assemble the first row of the quilt.

If you would like some more inspiration, please visit our guest designer for this segment of the sew-along, Andrea Hansen. She will be sharing her progress on row 1 on Instagram. This is her fabric pull. I can’t wait to see what flowers she has decided to sew! She told me that she might be adding blocks to her IG stream throughout the week. You will also need to take a peek at Andrea’s Etsy shop. She makes adorable pincushions featuring my Tell Me A Story Block, among other things.

Free Seedling Block!

The Grass block and the Pixie Cups (which are the little triangle flowers in the pot at the bottom of the original quilt) are time consuming. So I wanted to provide an alternative block for those who are newer to paper piecing. The Seedling blocks is also fun for those who just want to add some more variety into their quilt top. As you can see, the Seedling looks pretty darn cute in the pot, and works alone as well.

You can find the free Seedling pattern here. I also put together a video, walking you step by step through the block. I hope that this will help anyone who has rusty paper piecing skills and needs a few reminders and tips.

You know how I mentioned, in my last post, that I was giving myself permission to add new colors into my palette? Well, I already did it! I added in this flower color, which just happens to perfectly match my Havel’s scissors so I had to throw them in the picture!

Prizes!

Speaking of Havel’s, they have sponsored a prize yet again this week. Let’s talk prizes!

This week, there will be two winners!

As I mentioned, Havel’s Sewing has offered another set of tools that includes a rotary cutter, scissors and thread snips!

That same winner will also receive my Petal + Stem Aurifil thread collection. This prize feels particularly special because it’s the last available collection until Aurifil in Italy can reopen! These prizes will be shipped by me and are therefore only open to a US winner.

A second winner will receive this wool ironing mat from Nido. It will help you get nice, crisp, flat blocks! Nido is sending this mat directly and willing to ship to US or Canada!

The giveaway will be run on Instagram, just like last time. Any picture that you post in the next two weeks using the hashtags #whimsygardensewalong and #petalandstembook will count as an entry. You can take progress pictures of your blocks, photograph each finished block on its own, take a picture of the whole row, or just sew up the seedling block. If you are just getting your book, or forgot, you can still post a picture of the cover of your book, or your fabric pull, or your palette inspiration for an entry. I am trying to make this easy and fun! You do not need to complete a row to enter. Basically, any picture that you share with those two hashtags, that is reasonably connected to the book will get you an entry. And you have the potential to enter many times! The winner will be chosen on Sunday, May 10, 2020. Just find my IG post with the prize image for all the details.

Congratulations to the winner of the previous giveaway, @a_m_garcia721!

I will be looking for your pictures on Instagram and see you all back here for the next installment on May 11!