Joe's Red Garden: my return to Journal Quilting

      Tornado parties, deep snowfalls and trampolines are favorite childhood memories of my life in Amarillo. We didn't do gardens there in the prettiest dust bowl you might imagine. There is a mini Grand Canyon after all. But we did have irises, hydrangeas and little yellow tomatoes in my yard. Croquet and football took over, mostly.  Joe's dad grew lots of roses in Little Rock, but Joe and I have never gardened except for his digging holes for bulbs in the fall, our planting around the house wherever there is a vacancy, and my one time successful herb garden.

       I am so glad Joe decided to make a garden in his retirement, however too early it may be. I will call it his little red garden for he edged this sunny slope with big red paving stones and grass for a new direction. Altho he tied strings and built trellises, he mainly wanted flowers. I wanted food. So he allowed for that as well.

      Missing my journal quilting, I made one this afternoon. I had fabrics of seeds but chose a batik background since I think that is a good contrast with strong graphics. I grabbed some narrow strips that suggested trellises left over from the Round Robin. I laid these out and secured them with a glue stick. I needed more life and created an award for Joe, just grabbing ribbons from an open drawer. I needed to bead the center of the badge but there was a sticky rhinestone left over from a grandchild's craft and I stuck that on. I would have continued if I could have found my puff paint, but you know how cluttered an craft person's work areas can get! (I finally found it!...in a box, carefully put away.)

     After sewing this collage, I cut it down to 12 x 12, added a batik backing  and sewed the edges of the quilt sandwich (top collage, batting, backing). I added some red bias tape for edges, reminiscent of Joe's red edges to his garden. Forgetting the quilt was finished, I went back to sew in free motion Joe's garden 2012 on the tomato and embellished the award. This showed up on the back. Duh. I colored it out with a blue-green Sharpie. I REALLY have missed journal quilting.