Patchwork Gardens

Lately I’ve made a slight detour from my usual artwork into experimenting with patchwork gardens. What can I say, I watched one too many episodes of Gardeners’ World and it took me over. I’m going back to making my usual landscapes but the gardens will continue as a side project that’s easy to jump into when you only have a few minutes.

With fingers for scale. The paving slabs are the same scale in all pictures
A circle of blue silk that can represent a pond, bird bath, fountain – whatever you want
‘L’ – the first in an alphabet-themed series. Always pick the easiest to start! 2 inches by 2 inches

Lots of trials and errors! By the way, I don’t stitch the individual paving slabs together. I cut strips and nip the fabric together with dark thread at intervals:

Underside of the fabric showing narrow section nipped in with a row of backstitch
Pulling on the strip lets the dark thread show on the right side of the fabric, creating the effect of slabs
Experimenting with a curved path

I attempted larger garden plans but found it too difficult to join the pieces together neatly. So I’ve settled on creating small vignettes on a theme of letters of the alphabet.

It doesn’t show in the photos too well, but I don’t iron the patchwork flat, I let the lawns and flower and vegetable ‘beds’ follow their natural tendency to plump up on either side of the pathways. I like that 3D element.

For the record, I’m hopeless at actual gardening. Love looking at them though.

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