Do Your Own Thing

The week of March 18-March 24 I had planned on attending a do-your-own-thing retreat at the Woodland Ridge Retreat center. My plans changed, however, when we were given the opportunity to go on a long-awaited trip to our daughter and son-in-law’s restored cabin. The dates for the retreat and the visit to the cabin overlapped. Even though I had really been looking forward to the opportunity to sew to my heart’s-content the trip to the cabin was much more important.

Rather than totally giving up on my desire to overdose on sewing I decided to declare the previously designated retreat week as my in-home sewing palooza. Once I had decided to do that, the BIG question was—-what would I work on? My list of available options was longer than my arm. After much thought I decided to finish a quilt top I had started last summer. The quilt is called LuLu’s Garden.

LuLu’s Garden by Washboard Quilts

Fabrics and Pattern for LuLu’s Garden

LuLu’s Garden was designed by Pat Riley and published by Washboard Quilts. I first introduced you to this quilt on September 8, 2017, in a story called Quilt Retreat Day Seven. The project was one of three being considered as my next adventure. Rather than choose this quilt I decided to make my Teacup quilt instead.

My Teacup Quilt Top

After completing the Teacup quilt I found time to cut out the pieces for LuLu’s Garden. LuLu’s Garden had sat idle ever since.

Day One

Now that LuLu’s Garden was chosen I went in search of the tub containing the pattern and fabrics.

Project Tub Containing LuLu’s Garden Parts Department

After opening the tup I briefly read through the instructions for the pattern, then removed the previously cut fabrics. With all of my supplies at hand I began stitching together the 294 pieces.

By the end of the afternoon I was ready to begin assembling the seven rows. Before I could to that I had to shuffle and arrange the blocks into a cohesive arrangement. After photographing several options I decided to go with this one.

Next up…adding the sashing between the blocks and stitching the rows together.

Day Two

Picking up where I had left off I dove right into the process of making the sashing strips for between the blocks and rows.

From there it was onto row assembly.

By the end of day two three of the seven rows were finished.

Day Three

The remaining sashing pieces were added to the last four rows on day three. To finish the quilt top all I had to do was add the outer border.  The strips for the border had already been cut but not stitched together. Before stitching them together, into one long strip, I added 45° cuts to the ends of each fabric strip.

When all of the border strips were connected I took measurements of my quilt top. The first border to be attached was the sides. I calculated their length by running my tape measure vertically through the center of my top, from the top edge to the bottom. After cutting and attaching those pieces I repeated the same steps for the top and bottom borders. This time I used my tape measure to calculate the distance from side to side by laying it horizontally across the center. The two remaining sections were then attached and with that my LuLu’s Garden quilt top was finished. LuLu’s Garden measures 47”wide x 52 1/2” long.

Here is a peek at LuLu’s Garden.

My next task is to create a quilt sandwich and apply the longarm quilting.

By the time my LuLu’s Garden quilt top was finished I had chewed up the majority of my sew to my heart’s content week. The remaining days were needed for laundry and packing to go to the log cabin. I had hoped to get a lot more of my sewing projects accomplished but you know how it goes. So many projects, so little time!

Thank You for visiting with me today! I look forward to our next encounter.

Talk with you soon.