Gardening with Your Sewing Machine
Two of my favorite hobbies are gardening and sewing. A little over 20 years ago, I was introduced to a quilting technique by Natalie Sewell, nationally known landscape quilt artist. Natalie and I became fast friends and schedule two–three quilting dates each year. During this three-part series, our goal is to simplify the Landscape Quilting process so that everyone interested can enjoy the pleasure of creating outdoor scenes in fabric.
How to Create a Garden Scene with Fabric
A great beginner’s project is to create a close-up garden scene. Natalie’s design, Summer Flowers, is the featured quilt we used during the TV program as an example for choosing fabric, messy and fussy cutting, as well as designing with raw-edge appliqué.
Our book, Beginning Landscape Quilting, is a step-by-step guide for designing simple scenes. We’re confident that you’ll have great success.
First we start with an inspirational photo. We teach you how to study the photo, which will help in the fabric selection process.
Watch online and follow along in the book as we show you exactly how to create a garden scene. Below are the pages from Beginning Landscape Quilting featuring the steps to create a garden scene. It is a direct step-by-step guide, leaving no question as to what to do.
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We can’t help, but share a few of our scenes. Irises in my Garden is one of my early landscape quilts—I still enjoy looking at it!
How to Create Ground Cover
The next landscape quilting topic focuses on ground cover. I’m certain your eye focuses on the Dancing Maple in Natalie’s quilt by the same name. The lively and spirited tree is the star of the design. Yet, without the interesting ground cover, the depth and dimension in the quilt would not be as impactful. If your inspiration photo features ground cover, we share the tricks of choosing fabric and designing that all-important landscape quilt element.
You’ll learn that the inspirational photo is a starting point. Our quilts rarely, if ever, look like the inspiration. That’s not the point!
Dogwood by Natalie is another showcase quilt. I almost feel as if I could walk right into the woods!
My design, If Trees Were Teal, is more impressionist than realistic.
How to Create Background Tree Foliage
I am certain by now you realize you’re learning to use fabric as paint and scissors as your paintbrush to capture nature in a wall hanging. Natalie’s Autumn Birches design combines many techniques we’ve already explained, with the exception of background tree foliage. Next learn the importance of the scale of fabric prints and the importance of really bad messy cutting to give the impression of distant trees. (Learn how to do really bad messy cutting when watching online.)
The inspirational photo gave Natalie an idea of what fabric to choose.
Here’s another showcase, September by Natalie. Okay, we like to share our work!
Watch Beginning Landscape Quilting (Part One and Part Two) on Sewing With Nancy online.
Now that you’ve seen how easy it is to dive into landscape quilting, which season would you most like to capture in landscape quilt imagery? Leave your answer in the comment section below for a chance to win a copy of the book Beginning Landscape Quilting. One winner will be randomly selected.
The randomly selected winner of a copy of No-Hassle Triangles Quilt Blocks DVD from Nancy’s Notions, is Laura A.
Her comment was, “The card trick is my favorite. I am fascinated by all the different designs one can come up with using such simple shapes!”
Bye for now,
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Sharon Kirby
I am a new quilter still in the midst of my quilting course, but have been a quilt fan all my life. I am most anxious to “branch” out into other areas including landscaping quilting. I have watched your programmes on it previously and found it fascinating.
Marcinda Tischer
Your past programs on landscape quilting have so inspired me! I have a previous book from you on this subject and look forward to doing more of this! Love, love, love landscape quilts!
Kate
Early June has always been my favorite time of year. That is my birthday month and also, after teaching for 31yeats, it is the beginning of summer vacation. This summer June will be the beginning of my retirement. Well now, that’s along way to get to the answer for your drawing… my favorite season is early-summer.
Barabara
Fall is my favorite season with its luscious colors.
Jean
Just this morning I was studying the colors in a landscape picture I took a few years back.
Linda Smith
Beautiful !! I need all the help I can get for these beautiful ideas a book would do the trick !!
I watch all your shows !!
Peggy S
Fall. Just received some photos from a trip through the Loess Hills of Iowa that would be exciting to use as inspiration.
Donna Mathews
Quilting is art! And, one of the best types of art because it’s tactile 🙂 How wonderful to be able to snuggle underneath a beautiful landscape!
diane
Winter! Show me how to add some excitement to “white” of snow, snow, snow in the Midwest!
Sheila
Fall is my favorite time of year due to the warm and rich colors. I would like to do a landscape quilt to capture the changing colors of the leaves.
Margaret Wyszinski
I too love sewing & gardening. I’m new to quilting and will try a landscape quilt for my next project.
Marilyn Jaye
Fall is my favorite time of year. Nothing like those fall colors, but spring colors can be so delicate. It is hard to decide.
Clovis
It’ s hard to say. Summer with the pretty flowers. Snow covered trees. Both of your quilts are fabulous. It looks like you both painted them with a brush. Keep up the great work.
Ennis A
Landscape Quilting is one technique I want to learn. I love it. I love the fall season so would start with it. I’ve been saving info on this technique for learning. Now to get started!! Thanks.
Nell
Each season has something special to offer. Even though winter is not my favorite (too cold!) I think a winter landscape quilt would be stunning.
Ellen
Nancy so many wonderful showcase quilts and ideas for messy cutting to get distance. Love all of them. Fall is my choice. Thank you for all the great pictures and explanations.
Cindy M
This video is awesome! I’ve watched it numerous times and learn something new each time! I’ve been collecting my photos and trying to decide which one I like best, hard to do since every season has it’s own beauty! Maybe a 4 season collage?? Thanks for such a great lesson!
lstangl482 at aol dot com
Jeanette Hammons
Coming from Pennsylvania, I would have to do Autumn! I miss the miles of hills covered with a blanket of many colors!
Sally Ann
I would choose summer..warm weather, sunny and green with floral accents.
Cathy from KY
I would love to make a fall landscape and I’m sure winning the book would be a great help in accomplishing the project.
Colleen Terry
I have always loved landscape quilting. In fact, I have signed up for a seminar on pictorial quilting at Nancy’s Notions Sewing Weekend. I would love to make quilts as beautiful as the ones shown here.
Toni
I love this series–I’ve watched it several times but have told myself I can’t order this book/dvd until I’ve made the LAST kit I bought from you. 🙂
As much as I love fall decorations, I think I’d first like to try something for spring or summer.
Debra
It’s so hard to pick, but I have some great winter photos which would make a gorgeous quilt. I think it would be challenging working with a limited color palette.
Carol K
I have always loved the art of landscapes in fabric. Living in Florida with numerous Palm Trees I was intrigued by the different tree trunks growing in the woods. I have attempted on project UFO and get stumped with dimensions and depth.
Owning the book would certainly enhance my desire as I love pictures.
Marty
I’d like to start with my mother’s favorite spring blooms, but a second project would be my summer wildflower/everlastings.
Suzie Burger
I would like to start with the beautiful flowers and trees we have in spring. They are so welcome after the drab colors of winter.
BevM
Although we are enjoying the lovely Spring blooms now, I would prefer to create an Autumn landscape quilt.
Gina M
Summer… with it’s colorful annual flowers. I have a ‘garden maze’ quilt that needs to be embellished with some of your ground cover techniques. Thanks for the inspiration!
Wendi Morris
To capture Spring with the leaves just starting to bud and little wildflowers unfurling from under winter’s leaves. I would then move on to Summer , Fall and Winter because all seasons are glorious.
Cyndi
I have watched this show a number of times and love the quilts!! I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, one of the most beautiful areas of the country. I would love to make a spring or fall quilt as these are two of the most colorful times.!!!
Marjory Cordoza
I have many photos of my home in Scotland that I would love to create as a quilt. I don’t have the skills. But with this resource. I might make my dreams come to life. As always, Nancy, you have a winning product here.
Cheryl Binford
I really enjoy getting emails from your website, the quilts look so life like and are really pretty and colorful.. Good going Mrs. Nancy.
Margaret Wyszinski
I’m new to quilting & would love to do a landscape project very soon – especially one with a garden theme since I’m a gardener at a golf course.
Linda
I’m a California girl, and would love to make a poppy quilt for spring time!
Maria R
I would like to try winter. All of the grays and whites. Fun to play with shadows.
Patricia D
Fall, because I love the air at that time of year, I love the brilliant colors of the leaves, and because it is the time of year when we start using our quilts in earnest and look forward to a more intense season of making more quilts! (Then, I’d move on to all the other seasons, winter, with the snow, spring, with all the buds, summer, with all the colors. I’ve wanted to do landscape quilting for a long time. Really looking forward to it!
Cunningham Ann H
Spring is my favorite season with all the green background and the colorful flowers mixed with the grey/browns of the tree bark. I can’t wait to try this technique!
Duane Wiley
I’d like to try a spring landscape as I think it would be challenging to bring the emerging flowers and leaves to life. Each season has it’s own beauty. I live in Arizona and spring here has a unique quality about it, a blanketed green desert floor, cactus with bright colored blooms, and sprinkled amongst the rocks and hills you find wildflowers . It’s a lovely site. Thanks for the giveaway.
Suzanne Whetzel
I would do a fall scene with maybe a beautiful sunset in the background…
Brenda Ackerman
Spring would be my choice. I love flower gardening and seeing all of the vibrant colors of spring coming alive!
Jan C
I love all the seasons. It was wonderful that God gave us such variety. I just don’t like the heat of summer or the chance of wildfires. So, I’d have to go with spring, and it would have to include a blooming dog wood tree.
DebbieW
Though I’m a cold-weather person at heart, my love of gardens, be they vegetable or flowering, is life-long. How much fun to put your own interpretation on them with gorgeous fabric. : )
Margaret Schlimmer
This technique looks easy but the book sure helps as a guideline. I am working on a collage at the moment to be used as a handbag. Enjoy your daily inspirations!
Lela Schneider
Fall is the obvious answer to what season to capture. So many colors and textures to emulate. I think that if I had to choose a season for my landscape quilt though, I would choose late spring/early summer. We’ve had a long, long winter this year and the promise of greens and flowers and warmth and new growth seems so far away. My landscape quilt would bring those things inside to inspire us and remind us that snow does eventually melt. Hopefully.
Pat
I would make a landscape quilt of fall in the woods. I love the majesty of the trees and the warm earthy colors of fall.
Elizabeth Lewis
I think I’d start with Spring to showcase the explosion of blooms in our trees and shrubs here in Arizona. This technique looks like a great way to get started in quilting.
Jamie Breeden
I love landscape quilts! These demos have given me the confidence to try this myself. After Easter, I am going to try a small one. Would love to have these tools to help. Blessings!
Linda Israels
I live in Tucson now and miss the midwestern/eastern woods. I would pick spring in the eastern mountains.
Mary
Summer would be the season I would like to capture. Looking forward to making my first landscape quilt.
Julie Kill
I would choose Late Spring Early Summer! A May/June quilt would be beautiful! With this book I could learn to do what I want to do most! Thank you for another wonderful quilting idea and the chance to learn more about quilting!
Rinda Fullmer
I would love to make a quilt of my late summer garden; zucchini and tomatoes and an old wheelbarrow full of nasturtiums with purple morning glory climbing a trellis in the background.
Lynn Again
The first project I would like to try is a springtime scene from our backyard with our redbud tree in bloom. It is one of the things I most look forward to every year. I have admired landscape quilting for a long time and this package would inspire me to a good start!
Beverly
This is something I’ve really wanted to try but have no clue how to begin. Nancy always has the solution and her instructions are very clear. Thank you.
Cassy L.
I think I would like to try creating something to represent my summer season. Love, love love your “If Trees Were Teal” quilt.
Bonnie
What beautiful landscape quilts! I would like to make one for spring with flowering azaleas and dogwoods. Thanks for sharing this interesting technique.
Sherry N
At first I was terrified of trying landscape quilting. After all, I’m no artist! However, the more I study the technique the more willing I am to jump in. Every technique Nancy has shared has been right on, so I know this is the course I want to take. Thank you for making it available.
Wendy MacDougal
My childhood home, a 1,000 miles away, is dear to my heart. I long to see those gold and green rolling hills at summer twilight. Photographs do not do it justice! But the warmth and added dimension of a landscape quilt might satisfy me.
Gloria Edmiston
Hi Nancy,
I have been taking pictures for ideas for making a landscape quilt but I feel I need a little help to get going.
The Landscape beginner would be wonderful.
Thank you so much for all the good that you have done for the world.
Gloria
Cath
Summer, to finish an art quilt I started based on a picture of my lovely husky happily laying in the middle of my flower bed, oblivious to my pretty flowers trampled under her. She also liked to hide in behind the cannas and peek out like she was thinking she was a wild wolf, unseen by the mere humans. I would like to do a quilt based on that as well.
Edna Marks
Always wanted to try this, would love to make one with irises reminds me of my grandma who was a quilter.
Judy W.
I’d like to try to capture Spring — every year I’m always amazed at how many colors of green there are as everything “leafs out” again!
Madeline
I’m just learning how to landscape quilt and didn’t think I would care for it. But once the fabrics were cut and placed, it was amazing! I would begin with a Spring landscape with yellow daffodils, purple hyacinths and white flowers of some sort.
Sunni
Late spring. Like you, Nancy, I will do an iris scape. I was given iris bulbs from my late Grandmother. Her iris were known to bloom in 1940 and it is unknown how many years prior she grew these gorgeous LAVENDER bearded iris. Can you depict love in a floral landscape quilt? I will try!
Donna
I love all the seasons! I want to do all the seasons because the capture of the beauty of nature would always be on my walls.
Susan
Fall. It’s always been my favorite time of the year. The reds, oranges and golds against a bright blue sky are breath taking. I really miss that season now that I live in Florida.
Bonnye
Spring is my favorite season. The many colors of green leaves with the spring wild flowers.
Lori Michel
Winter….I live in Montana..so lots of snow, mountains, clouds and big blue skies….Watching your videos wants me to jump into my stash and see if there is some fabric I can use to make a garden design…
Linda Vetter
I haven’t tried a landscape quilt yet, but do plan to make one. Spring is my favorite time of year with all of the vibrant colors poking thru. That would be my first landscape quilt!
Susan Spiers
What fascinating landscape quilts! My choice of season would have to be Winter- white variations would make the landscape very challenging! Thank you, Susan
Robin
I would start with trees in fall. I love fall colors!
Cindy Hoover
My choice of landscape would be spring. I also am a gardener, and nothing excited me more than seeing the little shoots of spring-blooming bulbs beginning to arise from their long winter’s rest in the soil! It’s like a time of total renewing of the spirit.
Gayle R.
Summer would be my choice for a landscape quilt with lots of color and textures! So enjoyed watching you and Natalie Sewell on my local pbs station recently, I am enthused!
Betty Ann McNabb
I have tried unsuccessfully to complete lifelike landscapes., but I keep trying lol. I think my choice would be fall with blowing leaves, a field of pumpkins behind rail fencing, a pond and a forest full of fall colours in the background – at least that is my vision.
Denyse
I just got home from a Landscape Class and didn’t finish it and thought how nice it would be to have a book with information in it. How interesting that I opened this email. Pick me!
Kathy Ewart
Would love to do Fall! Love the warm rich colors. This technique is very inviting. Kathy
beth d.
I would like the spring season. I enjoy pictures of flowers, grass and trees.
Margaret Graham
Since I love the fall palate, I would do an autumn landscape to start out.
Susan T
Your and Natalie’s quilts are stunning. Thanks for sharing. I would have loved to see more. Nothing prettier than fall in Ohio so that would be my go to season.
Barbara Gardiner
I would Love to have my own bouquet of multi colored Lilacs to enjoy year round! I miss all of the antique Lilac bushes from my childhood home!
Julie B
Spring. It’s the sign of new beginnings. My yard is full of spring blooming bulbs and trees, just what we need after a long cold winter.
Lynette Wilson
Spring! After that I would love to do a fall landscape quilt.
Elizabeth Kuntz
I would like to work on a Spring or Summer landscape quilt. I love color!
kathy
My favorite season is fall. I love the colors-rich browns, gold, burnt orange.
Carolyn
I have never tried a landscape quilt but would live to. I think a spring theme would be inviting.
Gail Beam
Spring and Fall would be my choice because these seasons are bright and colorful. All of the quilts you showed are just awesome!
Kate
Winter with the rocky mountains as a backdrop would be my choice. I’m just mesmerized by your landscape quilts! I do have one of your books, but haven’t had the courage to start. Your quilts show how very talented you are.
Jade
Fall is my favorite season and I need to capture it on a landscape quilt because I am moving from Wisconsin to southern Arizona and will surely miss the beauty of fall (but certainly won’t miss winter!)
Linda
I would love to try a spring scape……with some lovely spring flowers….It would so brighten my home…..
AnDy H
Winter…..who knew white could exhibit so many other colors in the shadows ! Plus, the emerging grounds/waterways hidden in the mist in early spring always holds surprises.
Laura Melvin
I would like to do all four seasons of the same subject and then hang them together. We live on a farm and the view from my window is gorgeous year round.
Annette Canonica
I love all the seasons but my absolute favorite is FALL! The colors, the smells, the cool breezes, they come together in season of peace.
Karen Brayton
I would like to create a Spring landscape, showing the flowers and warm that the season represents for me.
Anne Z
I would love to make a Spring scene.
Terry
Fall. I love all the seasons.. The colors of Fall are particularly special.
Delaine
I love winter landscapes and I particularly love night time winter landscapes, so that would be the season that I would most love to capture. Thanks!
Nancy "Sandi" Fisher
I live in SW Florida so not much in change of seasons. I love the bright colors of magical flowers here, so more like vibrant spring. Learning about landscape quilting would be so helpful because of the many landscapes here to choose from, including so many different trees, beaches and water. Thank you for all your helpful ideas.
LoAnn Trowbridge
Spring
Carol
Fall! I love all the BEAUTIFUL colors! The season is very short here so I’d love to make a fall picture to “lengthen” our autumn! thank you for your giveaway!
Daniela M
I love fall, so bright orange and red colors are a must for me.
Shannon Denbow
I have watched all three episodes and love them. The quilts are amazingly beautiful. My two favorite hobbies are gardening and ‘learning all about art quilting’ HA! Just recently completed a Master Gardener program and designing my landscape as well as my veggie / herb gardens, I now have time to devote to the many ideas of art quilting with landscapes and scenery… Now… Just to figure out how to make them look as beautiful as yall do :D.
Pat Allen
Being an avid flower and gardening person over many years I have done Landscape quilted wall hangings as I found time. Since an accident several years ago put me in a wheelchair I can’t garden now, only in a few pots on my patio…..so I go into my sewing room and create those landscape scenes from outside into a wall hangings. With landscape quilting you can create a lot of beautiful memories. Thank you Nancy for showing us all we can do with sewing.
Suzanne R
It’s too hot in Florida for me to garden outside, but I’ve been wanting to try gardening with fabric. 🙂
Elaine Boulay
I grew up in New England and appreciate Fall colors of the trees reflected on local ponds. A fall scene is the first landscape quilt I would try.
Mary
Great inspirations above! I love late summer/fall when leaves are just turning, but are still bright in a forest scene. Not an easy task to choose one season when they all have their own attributes in the grand arena of color. Have been looking at beginning fabric art, just haven’t taken the time to study or read about it.
Joyce Leary
I am so enthusiastic about this technique – I can’t wait to try it! I was making a basket of flowers on a wall hanging and was told to make yo yo flowers but I liked this effect so much better. Thank you for the inspiration!