French Garden Patch Quilt

My French Garden Patch Quilt was a lovely finish to end the month of June and also the last quilt to be finished in time for the end of the 2021/22 Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge.

A little background on the making of this quilt which was started around 2006, I think. One of the nice things when I used to work in a quilt shop was seeing all of the new fabric arrivals and being able to purchase entire collections of 1/4 yard pieces. This was how I was able to indulge myself with Sandy Gervais, Pieces of My Heart fabrics which I still dearly love but have not purchased new lines for quite awhile now. This is okay since I still have a lot of what I now call vintage Sandy Gervais fabrics designed for Moda Fabrics.  I think I was inspired to make these 9” blocks of three squares and three rectangles in her French Garden collection when I was studying the floor tiles in my home. I didn’t keep good notes of the making of this quilt but I do remember I made around 100 of these blocks in this fabric collection because I love mixing florals with plaids/stripes. The plaids and stripes in the French Garden collection were called “brush” because they were homespun on one side and flannel on the other side. You had the option of choosing which side and I always chose the homespun side for the top. I used some of these blocks for a baby quilt around that time and the remaining 65 blocks have been sitting around for the last fifteen years. I decided last year when I was planning my projects for the UFO Challenge to include these blocks for a finish since it was time.

Since I knew this quilt would be the last one for the UFO Challenge, I started working sewing these blocks in a 7x9 layout and positioning the blocks so the seams would nest during the last week of May. The flimsie was finished on June 1st. I was afraid that I would not be able to finally finish it though since I was participating in MMM Quilts’ A Roll of the Dice Pattern Launch and Pop Star QAL and we would be traveling during the last two weeks of June. But as luck and good Quilt Karma would have it, when I arrived home from our final trip on Tuesday, the 28th, I immediately started machine quilting that evening and was able to finally finish it yesterday. It was a good thing that this quilt was basted before I left.

Machine quilting was straight grid lines combined with wavy crosshatched lines in the most perfect #5014 Aurifil thread in a teal mint shade. It went perfect and fast which sometimes isn’t easy with a 63”x81” quilt. The only challenge in finishing this quilt was that I did not set aside any binding, highly unusual for me, nada was in the binding drawer and there was no yardage of any of the prints in the Sandy Gervais stash. Quilt Karma luckily, I found in my other stash a Moda Aqua/Teal Weave print which was perfect and accented the fabrics perfectly. I wasn’t so sure of my choice until after the binding was attached.

I have to mention the backing which was a flimsie I made in 2007 using Sandy Gervais Baby Talk fabric and Jan Patek’s Pool Party pattern. This measured approximately 50”x70” so I added some additional strips of plaid fabric from the Sandy Gervais stash so it would be large enough for the backing. I’m thinking this is a great combo quilt for a girl, start off with the baby side and when she’s older you can flip it over to the garden patch side. Maybe the darling Granddaughter who’s becoming quite a Quilt collector would like it. Coincidentally, for the 2020/21 UFO, I ended making it a Baker Dozen Challenge since I finished 13 quilts and I guess you can say I did it again this year although I combined two flimsies together. I now have one less flimsie hanging around the studio and this is the second time I used a flimsie for a backing which is a great way to make the UFO load lighter.

I thought I include a collage of the 2021/2022 Challenge quilts. For this challenge, I thought I would step it up by not including any UFOs that just needed to be quilted but only projects which were in the block stage and may have needed additional piecing or the layout still needed to be determined. What was I thinking I asked myself several times during the year especially for the larger quilts. I am so glad I met the challenge, although I was late several time, and can say although sometimes there were quilts I thought I was so over the fabrics, I fell in love again with them after the quilts were finished-especially this month’s French Garden Patch Quilt. 

This quilt was my oldest UFO for the Challenge and although the colors may not be current and not as bright as the other quilts, I know they’re going to make a comeback just like Calico is this year.

Mary Etherington, Country Threads, is changing the Challenge for next year which you can do either two ways. The number she pulls will correspond with a color she already chosen for the month or it can still be for a UFO. I’m planning on doing something a little different, a Que Sera, Sera QAL where the number she pulls will give me the option of working on either a UFO, Scrap Project, Designer/Color fabrics or finally finishing a flimsie. I decided to make commitment a little bit more fun for this Challenge so I need to come up with my list of 48 possibilities today. I hope this is going to be a good idea.

Wishing you a Happy and Safe Fourth of July.

Linking up with:My Quilt Infatuation/NTT