Chelsea Garden

Anyone who sews or quilts or engages in any other creative endeavors, knows the calming peace that envelops you while you work. Lately, I have been able to carve out some time to rediscover this calming peace and at last have a finished quilt top to share!

The upheaval of this summer's upstairs refresh has taken so much longer than we expected. What started out as a quick update of our master bedroom - a simple matter of replacing the carpet with flooring, painting, and replacing our bed - became so much more involved with pretty much a total overhaul of both sewing rooms and the other bedroom.

And that's the short version of why I have been blogging so infrequently all summer. With this sort of chaos surrounding me, I didn't have the space to sew nor the inclination to write. 

Thankfully, the biggest parts of our refresh are behind us, and finally some normalcy has returned. With that return to the near-proper order of things, I have been sewing! 

In mid-September, when I took my machine in for repairs, I bought a bit of yardage and 2 mini-charm packs of Chelsea Garden. It was just too irresistible. I paired the mini-charms with some neutral Max and Louise fabric from my stash. Nine patches!! I never tire of them! I used the yardage with the tiny blue flowers as the setting blocks and thought that would be enough. 

 Hung up on the design wall, though, it just didn't have any impact or 'ZING!' Too blah. It needed to be bigger. So when I picked up my machine, I bought two more mini-charms and more yardage. They'd sold out of the tiny blue floral, so I got the tiny pink floral. I would just encircle the blue section with pink. And that is what I did. I am so much happier with this enlarged version because the chain of light squares shows so much more prominently.

And the 'ZING!' factor definitely comes from the border. I added a neutral inner border and a spectacular floral for the outer border and TA-DA!! I have a 70"x76" quilt top!

Here's a situation where in person this quilt looks so much better than the pictures indicate. The colors are so much more vivid, trust me. Maybe this close up below (when I decided that an inner border was imperative) shows the best or truest colors.

Isn't that border floral fantastic? I knew the minute I saw it that it was destined for this quilt. I love a totally impromptu project! Clueless in September and done in October! Chelsea Garden sure satisfied all my creative hankerings.

I continue with our upstairs refresh, but the jobs now include some fun stuff like creating a brand new guest bedroom and decorating spaces. Yes, I still have some boxes and closets and drawers to purge, but it's not as all-consuming as it was a month ago. Thankfully!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne