Written by Laura Chaney, Daughter
Today’s post follows up a little bit on our post on Six Ways to Find Inspiration and Renewed Energy for Quilting, Sewing and Crafting.
While I was home in Omaha helping my family we took a morning to visit the Lauritzen Gardens. Mom and Dad have an annual membership to this 100-acre botanical garden and conservatory, so they usually get there several times a year. The weather was a little chilly for this trip, but it turned out to be perfect once we started walking around the gardens.
I hadn’t been to the gardens for years (more than ten, at least), so it was really fun for me to see all of the plants, flowers and gardens that they have on display. Mom and I kept finding things that would be fun inspiration for a quilt! Mom was especially fond of these large round painted stones that she imagined making into a modern quilt.
One of the gardens that made me especially happy was the model railroad garden! They had three or four different levels of tracks running through the garden along with models of various Omaha buildings. Below is a little trolley car running in front of the model of my high school!
We came away from this local field trip with some new ideas and inspiration. Even though this wasn’t a quilting/crafting/sewing specific place, we definitely used the beauty and creativity of nature and the work of the Lauritzen Gardens staff to think outside of the box a little bit.
It's great to have days away from fabric and sewing machines – glad you got so much from your day at the gardens. It's the start of a holiday weekend here in the UK 🙂 so hopefully plenty of opportunities to go out finding inspiration.
What fun; making memories with family is the best of all activities!
love those painted stones.
Sometimes it is really hard to get inspired to create. Thanks for pointing out that inspiration is all around us.
THANK YOU for sharing again!
msstitcher1214@gmail.com
I love the painted rocks, they are beautiful and I can see where a person could get inspiration from them and a lovely garden!
I agree the painted rocks would be inspiration for a quilt!
Love those painted stones – they'd look great in my garden 🙂 *starts plotting*
This is the first time I've visited your blog and I enjoyed looking around. I started to follow on bloglovin. 🙂
I love those painted rocks!
the painted rocks are such a good idea
My husband grew up in a small town in Iowa close to Omaha. When we go back there, I am going to suggest visiting this garden. Those rocks are adorable and yes, they would make great modern quilts. Super idea! *Lara B. sent me!
Very pretty painted rocks. I like the red black and white one,great colors for a quilt.
I love those painted stones! They'd be great in a garden in winter to brighten it up.
What a wonderful place for inspiration!