“Secrets, Gardens, and the Illusion of Control: A Quilt Top Saga”
Let me tell you something about sewing with the Secret Garden collection: you think you’re in charge. You pick the fabrics, you design the blocks, you tell yourself, “I’m going to make something delicate and balanced and serene.” And then—somewhere around Hour Four—you look up from your cutting mat and realize you’ve been possessed by a Victorian fairy with big opinions about symmetry and the urgent need for whimsy.
The Secret Garden collection is full of lush florals, climbing vines, and magical “if this fabric were a perfume, I’d wear it to brunch with a talking rabbit” energy. When I first unwrapped it, I gasped. Not a soft gasp. A full, clutch-my-pearls-swoon-on-a-chaise moment. It was romantic, nostalgic, and honestly a little untrustworthy—in the best way. Like a garden that looks peaceful but absolutely has a mischievous fox running a black-market acorn ring in the back hedges.
You can see the finished top here on Instagram—and yes, I did let the fabric boss me around for most of the process. I leaned into soft contrast and texture layering, like I was landscaping a quilt instead of sewing one. I kept whispering things like, “maybe a winding path block here?” and “what if the borders felt like ivy creeping in?” like a person who definitely names their houseplants and gives them backstories.
What I ended up with is something dreamy, overgrown, and a little magical. It’s the textile equivalent of cracking open an old diary, only to discover it belonged to your great-great-grandmother who may or may not have been a hedge witch.
Key takeaways from this project:
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You can never have too many shades of green. Unless you’re my fabric storage bins. They’re crying.
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Florals are sneaky—they look gentle, but they’ll take over your design wall like vines through a window.
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Your quilt does not need to be symmetrical if it looks like it grew organically during a moonlit rainstorm.
If you’ve ever wanted to stitch a daydream, or just pretend your sewing space leads directly to an English garden with suspiciously intelligent birds, Secret Garden is your collection. Highly recommend pairing it with a cup of tea, a soundtrack of distant wind chimes, and the creeping realization that your quilt might be whispering back.