FREE Hidden Garden Quilt Pattern
Today is my birthday.
31 years ago I was gently lifted from my momma's belly, wiped of most my "goo" and handed over to another 31 year old. Mom, are you sure you were old enough to have me?? I still feel very young...also, I know a C-section wasn't your first choice, but I swear my head is still rounder because of it. So thanks!
I was walking home from the gym today – wearing furry snow boots, two pairs of pants, three sweaters and a furry parka, and I thought to myself, "Have I made good life choices?"
There's really nothing like a winter in Chicago to make you question the trajectory of your life. A very sassy friend of mine who recently moved from Chicago to North Carolina sent me a news article informing me that it's currently colder in Chicago than on Mars.
Thanks, Michelle. Suuuuuper helpful.
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It was a slow walk home from the gym for many reasons:
- My BodyPump instructor (Leslie, there's nooo chance that you will ever find yourself on a quilting blog, but in the off chance that you accidentally type "quilt pattern" instead of "protein powder" into Google, and by some amazing twist of fate you weren't turned off by my earlier reference to my birthing goo, I want you to know that I don't particularly like lifting weights, but I sure like you.) had eaten a holiday cookie over the weekend and so we aaaall had to pay...with extra push ups.
- It's currently 6 degrees with a wind chill of -20 and all of the sidewalks are covered in a thick layer of ice. So, rather than "walk," let's say "shuffle" home from the gym.
- The realization that nobody made me live here. At the ripe age of 31, I was willingly living in a place that gets colder than Antarctica (FACT). This, of course, caused me to amble along a bit slower and sadder and drift into reverie. How did I get here?
That pathetic half mile shuffle home allowed me to draw two conclusions about my life:
- Love has made me do crazy things. (Like live in Siberia and shave my legs and veeeeery occasionally wear lingerie.)
- Closed doors have shaped me more than success and opportunity.
I'm not going to dive too deeply into those points because the title of this blog post is FREE PATTERN and I've just spent 5 minutes of your life having a mini mental break through. I will say one more thing about getting older – I don't like wrinkles and I don't like my metabolism slowing down and I don't like gray hair.
What? Did you think I was going to end on something insightful and uplifting? girrrrl, you're on the wrong blog. Now, let's get to the pattern!
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My Raw Edge Appliqué Supplies:
- Fabric Scissors
- Pellon Wonder Under Fusible Web 805
- Iron
- Spray Bottle (I'm going to let you in on a little secret I learned through trial and error. I still think following the fusible web instructions is a good idea, but 😉 I found that spraying water directly on the fabric you wish to fuse down is quicker and more effective than using a damp cloth. I spray a little mist over the fabric, then place the iron directly on that piece and hold it there for about 5 seconds. I then slowly start moving it around so the fabric doesn't burn.)
- Safety Pins
If you follow this blog you will have noticed that a couple days ago I posted another free appliqué quilt pattern. That pattern encourages you to use needle-turn appliqué. This pattern, however, encourages you to do the opposite. Where before you hand stitched every little piece and savored each quiet moment, the keyword with this quilt is SPEED.
I made this quilt from start to finish in 2 days. I don't know if that is healthy and I would probably recommend spacing this out over a few more days, BUT, I tell you this so you know that it is possible. With the raw edge appliqué technique, you can actually quilt while you appliqué. Sweet, right?
Now for the good stuff – the pattern! Download the FREE Hidden Garden Quilt Pattern PDF here.
You can also get a quilt kit to make this very quilt at fabricworm.com.
I hope you have fun sewing with this pattern. It really is a great design to show off those big beautiful prints you've been hoarding. If you have any raw edge appliqué tips, don't hesitate to leave a comment! And if you make this quilt, be sure to use #HiddenGardenQuilt.
Now...I think I'm gonna go treat myself to a pedicure....except, how am I supposed to get those furry boots back on with freshly painted toes? Real life Chicago struggles, man!! 😉
Happy Birthday! We lived in Chicago for about 6 years and I remember the days of a winter coat that looks more like a sleeping bag. Then Spring arrives and you remember why you love the city. We may end up back in the area and I’m trying to convince myself that snow is really pretty. Still working on that. Thanks for the pattern!
Thanks, Kim! Snow is really pretty…it’s that terrible wind off the lake that hurts so much. But forget I said that….of coooourse you should move back to Chicago! 😉
Love this quilt, so thank you for the free pattern. Happy Birthday! 31 isn’t bad, I’m 40 next year…xx
I’m turning 40 next year too … Grey hair, slowing metabolism and sagging skin are the worst … thanks for cheering me up with this lovely pattern! Happy birthday 🙂
Reading this was like reading my own thoughts. I’m pretty sure we are kindred spirits, minus the Siberia part.
Side note: LOVE this fabric. Bunnies are my fave.
Knowing that someone else is having similar thoughts as me makes me feel less insane! haha Thanks, Bailey!
Suzy!!!!! Happy Birthday, and happy BIRTHday to your mama too!!!! Looks like you are standing in the sand way out in the desert in the picture???!!! Like Tucson, AZ perhaps???? Betcha they don’t have snow out there!!!!! Just saying……as an old OB nurse, I enjoyed your description of your birth! 🙂
And, thanks for the pattern!
I am excited to create with this pattern. Something slow and simple at this time in my life.Thank you for sharing.
Happy Birthday and thank your the beautiful quilt pattern! I’m from Finland but living in Greece over 20 years. I love the weather here even summers are too hot for me (when I’m getting older). Winters here are great if not too rainy. Still I feel that I miss the beautiful snow even I really didn’t like the winter when I lived in Finland. Merry Christmas! x Teje
Happy Birthday! As a fellow Chicagoan I totally sympathize. Every year I spend a good 4 months fantasizing about moving somewhere with no “wind-chill factor”, but then summer comes again I forget all about Chiberia. Thanks for the amazing pattern, I’m hoping that this will be the year that I tackle a full-sized quilt.
It’s that dang summer that gets me every time! What a tricky little jerk you are, Summer!
And this is definitely the year of the full-sizes quilt. You can go it, girl!!
Suzy, I’ve had the best time exploring your blog!! As a very new quilter I’ve loved your gorgeous designs, helpful tutorials, and the friendly atmosphere you’ve created here. Thank you for sharing!!
Happy birthday and thanks for the pattern.
Sounds like your bday had a great start….if a teeny bit chilly ???? Happy happy birthday! Just celebrated mine on December 10, so I know how December birthdays can be! However…my mom always made it a separate day so that was a beautiful thing! ???? Thanks for the brilliant pattern too!
Happy Birthday, SuzyQ. Life gets better after you hit 30 – or that has been my experience. At 31 you are just coming into your prime. Thank you for the free gift – I love anything leafy and this is super gor-jus!! Many happy returns.
I appreciate that, Pam. Thank you!
Thanks for the birthday gift!! Hope this year is great!
Happy Birthday first of all but I must say I miss those cold Chicago winters. When people complain here in Oregon about it being cold at 40 degrees I just laugh, I wonder how they would feel with those negative wind chill factors? Thanks for the free pattern 🙂
This may solve all your problems.
http://www.windycitymobilespa.com/services.html
Also, this math problem to prove that I’m not a robot. . . it’s cruel. I know it’s not a very tough question. . . but still, cruel!!!!
Happy Birthday and thank you for this lovely pattern.
You have given me a gift for my birthday on the 24th.
Sharing your creativity and kindness is a blessing for us all.
can you be more specific what you mean to stitch around edge? Straight stitch how far in or blanket stitch?
Happy birthday! Thank you for the birthday gift. I hope you have a special day. My son was born on this day also and he’s still best my Christmas gift ever. There’s no snow where I am so if you get the chance would throw a snow ball for me? Have a great day!!!
My mom always told me I was her best Christmas gift too. 🙂 Every year she worked hard to make my birthday feel special and separate from Christmas and I appreciated that so much. I think my mom’s the best and I bet your son feels the same way about you. xo
Happy Birthday! I’ll be in Chicago this weekend visiting my daughter and son-in-law. Can you recommend any quilt shops in the city?
YES!! Oak Fabrics is amazing – the owner Rachel is super fun and a great resource. Second City Quilt Co. is also great for quilting cotton.
What?!! It’s YOUR birthday and I get the present? You are on the NICE list this year!
We lived in the western suburbs 2006-2010 and the hubs traveled for work sometimes. I seriously did NOT love trying to get out of my driveway for work after the snow plow piled the snow at the end of our drive.
After 18 years of dye jobs, I went cold turkey on hair color by telling myself that it’s not grey, it’s glitter… And now I rather like it!
Glitter! I love that! I’m not ready to take the plunge yet, but catch me in 5 years and I may be right there with ya 😉
SuzyQ,
May you have a fantastic birthday, and hopefully a bit of a warm up in Chicago. They say life get better as each 10 years passes you by, and in your 30’s your adventure, whatever that may be, will be special. Live it up, because time is one thing that goes by soooo quickly. I am about to hit my 70’s and I can say that it may not be quite as exciting as your 30’s, at least I am kickin and able to write this. Enjoy yourself, and live life to its fullest, and you are so sweet to share this lovely quilt with all of us.
Thanks, Caroline! Now that I’m technically in my “early 30s” and not just 30, I feel much more relaxed about getting older. Is that weird? I’m sure you make 70 look great and I’m so happy you found your way to my blog. Happy Holidays! xo
Yet another gem of a quilt, ongoing advice for this relative newbie, and a blog full of quilty stuff I never knew I needed to know and learn! Very thankful I fell upon your site a few months ago. I sincerely appreciate the fact that you offer advice and actually seem to want to interact with your quilty audience.
I used your Christmas list suggestions for my fam and just feel like there might be some little gems in brightly adorned boxes under the tree. I took up quilting after many years raising my three kiddos, and now that they’re all in their early 20’s, mom needs a little diversion from the office in the evening so quilt I must.
Thanks again from Grand Rapids! One of these days when I come to visit my daughter I’d love to grab a coffee with you.
Keep up the great work!!????????????
31 huh?! Happy Birthday! I hope the year is filled with lots of laughter, love and plenty of quilts! ???? ????????????
Thanks for the great comment, Nancy! I’d love to grab coffee and chat about quilts. 🙂
I saw your post on instagram and I have never made a quilt before but now I want to. I don’t even know where to start. I have a sewing machine, but my sister uses it. Can I do this as a beginner?
Have you ever sewn before or do you have someone who has who could guide you a bit? This is a pretty straight forward and simple pattern, but it does require you to have a few sewing machine skills.
Happy Birthday….beautiful quilt pattern,can’t wait to make it….. and pl..ease…You are still so young..My baby will be 39 this year, and I will be 70! Just don’t know how that happened….And…some words of wisdom, grandchildren keep you young!
Thanks for the great quilt pattern – I love doing applique. 31 is a great age & it just keeps getting better. Enjoy everything that you can while you can, as time will go by in a flash when you are having fun & simply age gracefully.
Thank you Suzy for sharing your beautiful pattern! Sorry that I missed your birthday, but happy belated birthday! I adore quilting but have shied away from doing applique, this will be my first attempt at doing so. Wish me luck and keep making us push our limits when it comes to quilting! Im a Navy brat that spent many years in the Great Lakes area and my parents retired in Gurnee. I lost my mom a year ago and along with my passion for quilting. Last Nov I jumped back into quilting with my mom in my head yelling at me about giving up on what I love doing. I made a quilt for a Military Vet. and my passion returned. Thank you for sharing and motivating me to do what I love. I live outside of Madison Wisconsin and would love to take a few classes with you if you offer them in person or if you have a store off the website. Again, thank you!
Thank you for sharing your story, Jeannine, and I am so sorry for your loss. I too have experienced times when my heart was full of too many emotions and quilting needed to take a back seat. Something I read recently has given me a lot of peace – “Be patient with yourself. Nothing in nature blooms all year.” Some seasons we makers can be so busy, creative and efficient while other seasons…well, other seasons require us to be still.
Good luck sewing appliqué (Even though you won’t need it.)! I may be teaching more in the future. I’m not the best at planning, so we’ll see. haha. If you’re on my newsletter, I’ll post more information there. xo
Working on this quilt right now!! I’m still relatively new to all of this and maybe it’s a silly question, but what color thread did you use to quilt this? I always tend to overthink that!
Cream. My rule of thumb for machine quilting is to match the thread to the lightest color.
Thank you! Thank you!
I just bought the kit and fabric and am so excited to start! I have a question: I have Heat n Bond lite iron-on adhesive from an earlier project. It seems like it would work the same as the paper-backed fusible web you recommend. What do you think? Thanks!
I would recommend testing a little bit of it out before using it on the whole quilt. A 3″ test square on some muslin will work just fine. Really, the only purpose for the fusible web is to keep the fabric in place long enough for you to sew it down.
Thank you! I can’t wait to start.
Sorry I missed your birthday — happy belated birthday!! Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful pattern — I love applique and I love fabric with big happy prints!
What a LOVELY quilt pattern! Thank you so much for sharing. I printed it out and will start on the hand work shortly, as I can’t just sit – have to be doing something with my hands. I finished doing all the hand work about 3 months ago on my version of your Aria quilt that I saw in late December — only I appliqued mine to 5″ low volume charms….all 729 charms. It was the perfect project to do while waiting during lots of doctor visits, lab tests and ultrasound/CT scans for possible ovarian cancer. I just kept stitching away to keep busy. Thank the Lord I do NOT have it! After a hysterectomy I had loads of time to finish all 729 charms for our king size bed. Once I get a couple other projects done I will lay all those out and start stitching up the rows. I deliberately made a few very small ‘dabs’ and a few that cover most of the charm square, just for interest. Can’t wait to see how it turns out! Thank you for all the LOVELY work you do and share with us!! Deb E / Oregon
A king quilt made up of hand appliqued pieces? WOW! Deb, I bet that is stunning!
You posted this as a free pattern today, which brought me back to this page, and I saw that I’d commented on it, when I was in the midst of tests & surgery, and thank you to the Lord, NO ovarian cancer. Since then we’ve sold our home, moved back to No. California & now living with our son (looking for a home to buy here) and I’m looking for another job here….how things change in time! I actually finished my “Hidden Garden” quilt, and its one of my very favorites – and one of the very few that I’ve kept of the hundreds of quilts I’ve made. Mine was set against a lovely shade of yellow, and I hand appliqued every one of those ‘petals’….it was a lovely project to do in my free time. I highly recommend this pattern as its just a lovely quilt when finished. Now if I can just get the time to put together the 729 charms on a wall the way I want it and get at least the 4 sections put together — that one I call my “Squircles” quilt, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out….
I have been looking a long time for something I LOVE to start a quilt for some of my kids baby clothes. And, this is perfect!! Would this work for jersey fabrics as the appliqué pieces? Or should I make a change somewhere in the process? This will be my first quilt so any advice would be appreciated! Thanks for the beautiful pattern!!
If you use the same fusible webbing I used here, working with jersey t-shirts should be fine. If you want to add stabilizer to thinner, stretchier shirts, I have an article that could help – https://suzyquilts.com/make-a-memory-quilt/
HAPPY BIRTHDAY from Florida and have a great one. It’s a beautiful quilt. Thank you and now I hope I can download it. Was having problems with downloading.
I’m late to the party (by a couple years but Happy Birthday from Woodridge IL.) Yep Chicago is not for the faint hearted.
When I quilt on my sewing machine instead of fobbing it off on a “real” quilter, I have to do it all on the same day. My mood, strength, pattern idea, just won’t be there tomorrow. The pattern will be smaller/bigger and possibly better, but still different. Thank Dr. Jekyll. Love this pattern and think I might make it smaller with an Eye Spy theme (but love the fabric you used!)
Thanks for reminding us of this pattern.
Joan
Hi Suzy! I don’t know if you stay active on the comments for old posts, but I’m hoping so! I found your site a couple weeks ago and absolutely LOVE this design. I would love to make it for a little girl, and so using lap quilt dimensions instead (I’m thinking 45″ x 60″). I would love to know what size would you recommend for the leaves (75% of this size, or 50% or another reco)?
Hey Madeline, since the finished size of this quilt is 40″ x 60″ I recommend keeping the templates at 100%.
Hi! Silly question, but won’t the fusible wash out, and the edges of the teardrops fray? I love this pattern but I’m terrified of this! Lol
Yes, the fusible will wash out, but that’s OK because the fabric pieces will have been sewn and quilted down by that point. With raw edge applique, the edges can fray a little bit based on how closely you sew to the edge of the fabric. Some people sew up to a 1/2″ away from the edge with the purpose of the fabric fraying. It’s all about the look you want to achieve.
Hi! Thank you so much for all the work you put into making these tutorials. I’ve started buying my supplies and I’m hoping to make two quilts for my daughters by Christmas.
I plan to use knit fabric, can I use this same fabric to do that? I’m all about speed and ease. So using knit fabric and a machine to quilt sounded like the best option. Look forward to hearing from you! Thanks again!
The quilt I’m making isn’t following your exact pattern. But I’m using several of your posts to come up with something. The size is for a twin bed. About 58” by 90”
You definitely CAN use knits. I have a few blog posts that should help:
– https://suzyquilts.com/how-to-sew-with-knits/
– https://suzyquilts.com/the-bohemian-garden-quilt-pattern/
– https://suzyquilts.com/how-to-make-a-modern-applique-pillow-with-knits/
Happy Birthday!🥂 from No. Carolina….🍂
This is the first time to your blog. I gave enjoyed it very much. I would like the Hidden Garden quilt pattern and have tried many different ways to download it. But have failed. I was wondering if you could send it to my email. jencan61@gmail.com. I would love to make it.
Thank you.
Sure 😉