A Walk Through the Garden

Who doesn't love a beautiful garden? There is just something about the beauty of a flower that fills my heart with joy. One of my fondest childhood memories is visiting with my great-grandparents and spending time in their backyard, which was almost entirely a flower garden. My great-grandmother stitched this lovely piece, which hung at the top of the stairs in their home. It is almost as lovely as her flower garden was. Whenever we would visit when flowers were blooming, we always went home with a cut bouquet of fresh blooms from her garden. 

This photo of Grandma's garden was probably taken in the 1960s.
To this day, I plant portulacas along my front walk in memory of her.

Because I (Teri) have always loved my flower garden, it seems no surprise that I would be so drawn to stitching flowers as well. That was surely what pulled me so strongly to Baltimore Album style appliqué: there are so many flowers to stitch. And oh, the things one can do with ribbon! (See Another Baltimore Journey.) I thought it might be fun to dig through some of the photographs I've taken in my garden visits and compare them to some flowers I've stitched. So, put on your garden shoes, and let's take a walk through the garden!

I stitched this poppy about thirty years ago as part of a crewel kit—one of my first endeavors.
It was stitched with wool thread.

The real thing, in my garden.

Cherry blossoms, appliquéd with cotton fabric.
Yo-yos are gathered into petals, with embroidered pistils.

Cherry blossoms from the tree in my front yard.

This lovely yellow rose is made with wired silk ribbon. It hasn't found a home yet,
but I'm sure it will be stitched into a "garden" someday. 

I wish I could say that this is from my garden, but I must confess
that this one was taken at the Hershey Gardens in Pennsylvania.

This dimensional hydrangea is stitched with wool,
made of over a hundred squares cut into four petals.
Each blossom is attached with a bead.

These beauties are from the garden at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina.

I have always loved wisteria, another remembrance of my great-grandparents' garden.
This is stitched using floss—stem stitch and colonial knots—on a miniature crazy quilt sampler
I made for a class we teach. 

This lovely wisteria grows in the garden of a dear friend.

My cattails are appliquéd with cotton; 
the real cattails are by a pond near a hiking trail near our home.

This red rose and bud are stitched with red silk, with appliquéd
cotton leaves and calyx, and embroidered with silk thread.

Another stunning rose from the Hershey Gardens. 

The water lily is stitched using cotton fabric, with perle cotton pistils.

Another Hershey Garden bloom

Last week, we looked at Kara's marigolds, which inspired me to look at some of my own flowers. If I'm not stitching a flower, there is a good chance that I'm taking a photograph of one. It was great fun to search my photo files and compare the two. The inspiration I find in a garden, or even a field of wildflowers, is amazing. 

Thank you for joining me. I hope you've enjoyed our garden walk! Are you feeling inspired to stitch some flowers?