Skip Around the Garden Quilt

A series of thoughts lead to the beginnings of this quilt. I had been working intermittently on my scrappy 1” hexagon quilt and it was getting near the size I wanted to finish it at. One normally feels happy and elated that a project is nearing completion, but I felt a tinge of sadness. This quilt had been there for me for twenty plus years to provide soul soothing stitching time, what would I do without it?

I knew that if I was going to be finishing that quilt soon, I would need another comfort scrappy quilt to replace it.

The second seed of an idea that was planted in my mind was a desire to work with more squares in EPP. I thought squares could make a wonderful next scrappy quilt and I started looking at different quilt designs. I have always enjoyed traditional Trip Around the World designs, which were wonderfully scrappy, but had an element of design to the scrappiness.

If you’re unfamiliar with this type of quilt they consist of blocks of squares pieced together on point. A block starts with four squares sewn together to form a square. Squares are then added working around this central block, each row around the center consists of the same fabric, but each row is a different fabric. It makes for a wonderfully scrappy look.

Sometimes the blocks are pieced together with rows of a single fabric that is repeated across the quilt, often a solid colour to help distinguish between the blocks. Other times the blocks are simple sewn together. Other versions aren’t made from blocks, but the squares are added going round and round and round until the quilt reaches the desired size.

You can find lots of examples on my Pinterest Board Square Shapes.

The third seed of an idea came while working on my Granny’s Flower Patch Quilt. This quilt was inspired by deconstructing a traditional Grandmothers Flower Garden Quilt pattern (incidentally I still desire to make this traditional quilt design too).

While working on one of my flower blocks one night, a light bulb moment struck! What if I made a scrappy hexagon flower block similar to how a Trip Around the World Block is created? Straight away, I grabbed some spare basted hexies from my Granny’s Flower Patch Quilt and made a flower that had a solid center, 3 petals in one fabric and three petals in another.

For the second round of ‘hexie petals’ I again used two different fabrics, working them in rows around the center flower. I decided the flower blocks would need a third round of petals, so I chose another three fabrics, again working them in rows around the flower block.

I loved what I had created. Suddenly I could see a whole new quilt before my minds eye.

I knew this was an idea that need to be pursued, it wasn’t something I could just force back into the recesses of my mind. I went to my stash and pulled out more fabrics that complemented the ones I had pulled from my Granny’s Flower Patch Quilt.

I believe that scrappy quilts can have a colour scheme and remain whimsical. The colour scheme for my quilt consists of yellow, green, pink and blue. These colours expand out into varying tones. I made sure to select different scaled prints, some ginghams and I always like to mix in solids.

For my second block, I thought ‘I wonder what would happen if I changed the position of the central flower’? And so, I did, I moved it to the side of the block and then like before chose different fabrics to work around it in rows. Very quickly, I became addicted to creating these flower blocks.

As I made more and more blocks, I began to think about how I should connect them. Do I just sew them together like many Trip Around the World Quilts are, or do I connect them with a path of 60 degree diamonds. With seven blocks completed I laid them out to see what I thought. I very quickly moved towards adding the connecting diamonds in an ivory colour. I liked how the path of diamonds allowed the blocks breathing space.

In total the quilt consists of twenty-one full flower blocks, six half blocks, seven edging blocks and two corner blocks. There is a total of 959 one-inch hexagons, 249 one inch sixty-degree diamonds and 54 one inch equilateral triangles.

I love when a quilt design has a story. While it’s believed that the traditional Trip Around the World Quilt got its name from the way the continuous pattern of the quilt blocks symbolizes a journey across the globe, I knew that the story of my quilt was going to be different.

It’s no secret that I love gardens and flowers. As I made my flower blocks, I could see how each one could represent a flower or garden bed. The different fabrics used within the blocks started symbolising the various plants and flowers within these ‘garden bed’ blocks. The diamonds that connected the blocks became the garden path, winding its way around each garden bed. I started to call my quilt Trip Around the Garden.

After a little while though, ‘Trip’ didn’t seam to make sense, you walk around a garden after all. Of course, walk didn’t have the same ring to it, but skip did! Straight away I could imagine my daughter wearing a pretty dress, her long red hair flowing behind her as she skipped around the garden, following the path, chasing butterflies, picking flowers and enjoying the general wonderment.

With my name chosen and the quilt top pieced, the final piece of the puzzle was determining how I should quilt it. I knew I wanted to hand quilt, as these days that seems to be my preferred method, especially when it comes to EPP. I didn’t want the quilting to over power the hexagon blocks, there was already so much going on in the quilt.

I first considered doing straight lines through the middle of the hexagon rows but quickly dismissed that. The only other option was to hand quilt following the shape of the hexagons and work my way around the block in rows.

I began by quilting around the central hexagon, then the focal flower. Then I worked my way around each of the rows, making small quilting stitches using Wonderfil Fruitti in colour 37. This is a 12wt cotton variegated thread that is quickly becoming my favourite for hand quilting. It gives a defined stitch without being too noticeable like a perle eight thread would be.

For the back of the quilt, I didn’t have anything suitable in a large enough piece, so I decided to do a randomly pieced back using a variety of fabrics that complemented the colours and style of fabrics on the front. I really like how the pieced back turned out and it’s kind of fun having a quilt that’s reversable.

For the binding I chose a lovely Liberty quilting cotton fabric that also features on the back, Garden Party Posie Grace Cream. I didn’t want to add any borders to the quilt, so the binding is sewn directly to the edge of the quilt with shapes then trimmed back. I decided to slip stitch the binding down on the back for a neat finish.

I am so happy with how this quilt turned out and I’m so grateful to myself for following the seeds of ideas that came scattering out of my mind. I feel like I have been planting a garden of beautiful fabrics as I stitched this quilt together.

I think it’s a fun and whimsical take on both traditional Trip Around the World Quilts and Grandmothers Flower Garden Quilts. The design is unique and glorious in all its scrappiness. It definitely marries my love of scrappy with my love of hexagons and my love of gardens and flowers.

The kids and I took a trip up to Mount Tomah Botanic Gardens so that I could take photos of my finished quilt. We try and visit the garden every season to see how it changes and evolves. The kids and I love exploring the garden and we have our favourite spots to sit and rest.

I hope you enjoyed reading the story behind the Skip Around the Garden Quilt. I can’t wait to see how other stitchers interpret the pattern and create their own versions.

Until next time, Happy Stitching

Miss Leela x