Garden Progress

Garden in process
Garden in process

This piece was started in a Pamela Allen class in 2009. I dreamed about it this week which encouraged me to pull it out of the closet (it usually hangs on the wall of my fabric closet, so I see it frequently) and I spent some time working on it over the weekend.

Garden detail
Garden detail

Basically, what I did was start machine quilting the background. I have a very straightforward style for quilting the piece: I start outside of the piece and go straight up and down until I am done with the section, then I move on to the next section.

I have the perfect green Aurifil for the green grass section, so I worked on that and got quite a bit done.

I also decided to use a variegated King Tut thread that I have had for awhile for the orange hand dyed sections around the turquoise flower. Really nice thread! I know I have used it before, because the wrapper was off the spool and I had a partial bobbin. I can’t remember which project, though. It gave me no problems and I really liked the look.

I want the piece to look like it was built in layers. At the moment, I am trying to figure out whether to also closely quilt the foreground (flowers, stems, leaves, etc) or if I will just use the Perl Cotton to quilt it. I have quilted the stems separately and at a slightly different angle to see if it looks different from the background.

Garden detail
Garden detail

Another layer of the piece is the different fabrics I used. Some of them are part of the same area, so I need to try to minimize the impact of the change of fabrics.

I should have quilted the foreground before I added the flowers, but in the course of a workshop, that sensible method just isn’t possible.