Quilting | A Daisy Garden

Archive for the ‘Quilting’ Category

County Fair

Posted in Photography, Quilting, Travel, tagged fair, photography, Travel on November 12, 2014| 20 Comments »

I went to a cute little County Fair this past weekend.

My favorite part is always the animals…

I have to tell you, though, I was very disappointed to learn that the chickens and roosters were not scheduled to arrive for another 3 days! That is always my favorite section!
Oh well, maybe next time…Sigh…

They also had an old building filled with different kinds of historical displays…

I was so excited when I saw some quilters demonstrating the art of hand quilting. It was fun talking to them.

There was also different sewing machines from the early 1900s

Outside, there was a large display of different kinds of machinery and other “vehicles”

It was a fun time, just walking around, enjoying the different areas. It was a small fair but there was something for everyone… Rides, food, contests,…

There were several groups performing at various stations and I enjoyed listening to them.

I’ll leave you with a picture of these two sweeties…

Happy Fall/Autumn,
Daisy

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Quilt Shop

Posted in Quilting, Sewing, tagged Fabric, quilt, Quilting, Sewing on August 28, 2014| 17 Comments »

Earlier this year, my husband & I were in North Carolina,
and while we were walking around one of the historic downtowns,
I found a cute little Quilt Shop…

It was in a town called Black Mountain,
it was a very pretty area
and the town was surrounded by…
mountains. 🙂

The store had some beautiful quilts for sale.
I asked the lady at the register if I could take a picture
of these quilts that were up on the wall right behind the counter.
I was so happy she said, “Yes!”

The store didn’t have fabric for sale like a Quilt Fabric Shop…

It only had Quilts for sale.

…So I was very surprised when I saw these Fat Quarter Bundles!

The fabrics in these bundles are usually $12-15 a yard…

Normally, these bundles cost $10-$12 each…

But these bundles had $3 on the price tag.

I thought it was a mistake, so I asked the kind lady behind the counter…
She assured me it was correct.

I was so excited.
Disclaimer: This was before I had decided to use up my stash
before buying any more fabric.

The fabrics are so beautiful…
they are also very soft, silky,
…and colorful!

I would never choose these, but together they looked so pretty
…and I am trying to break out of my blues/greens/yellows
into a more adventurous territory…

The individual fabrics have beautiful details and color.

I can’t wait to use them in a quilt!

So even though this store was not a quilting fabric store,
I got to see some very beautiful quilts,
and I did get the unexpected pleasure of buying some
pretty fabric for a fantastic price!

Now if I could just find time to sew! 🙂

Have a terrific weekend, everyone!

Daisy

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Fun with Fabric!

Posted in Gifts, Quilting, Sewing, tagged Fabric, Gifts, quilt, Quilting, Sewing on April 28, 2014| 14 Comments »

This week, there’s a great sale going on in one of my local fabric stores (JoAnn Fabrics).

I think of Birthday and Christmas gifts all year long…
(whether for me or a loved one) 🙂
and when sales come up,
I take advantage of them.

This (above photo) is a group of coordinating fabrics
that I think will make a very nice quilt!

These stacks are sometimes over $100 if you buy them as a set.
But I’m too much of a tight-wad —
(it sounds nicer when I say “thrifty” so that’s what I’ll say from now on)
— to spend that much… why, that’s just plumb crazy!

So…
I chose a pretty fabric that I thought was cheerful and fun…

and then began choosing coordinating fabrics that looked good together.

They’re going to be living together forever in this quilt,
so I have to make sure they can all get along, right?

Choosing the fabrics is so much fun for me!!
Looking through all those pretty colors & prints…
it’s actually therapeutic…
I hadn’t been feeling well, but by the time I finished choosing all the fabrics,
I realized I felt much better.
Some of these prints just make me smile and “ooh” and “ahh”
so I guess that takes my mind off everything else.

Here’s a close up:

And here’s the stack.
I bought a yard of the background fabric,
but all the others are half-yards.

In those $100 stacks, they’re only fat quarters (18″ x 21″)

All these fabrics were 50% off, so
I ended up spending only $17.75 for this entire stack!

That’s a whole lot better than $100!
And now I get to either use it in a beautiful quilt,
or give it away for someone else to have fun with quilting.

Happy quilting, folks!

Daisy

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Mother/Daughter Trip

Posted in Photography, Quilting, Travel, tagged Fabric, Family, Mountains, photography, quilt, Quilting, Travel on April 12, 2014| 22 Comments »

My daughter & I recently took a trip together.
It was so much fun!

We wanted to make it a history/quilting/sewing/fun trip.
We planned to visit historical places during the day and in the evenings
we’d quilt or sew. (We had to go up & down on steep mountain roads,
so we decided we’d rather not do that while it was dark!)
Can you tell we grew up in the city?!

We were able to stay in a friend’s cabin up in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains.
Close to the cabin was a beautiful waterfall. It wasn’t easy taking a “selfie”, but here we are. 🙂

The third day we were there, it snowed!!
We were in a cozy cabin, with a nice fireplace, so we were happy, quilting…

It was kind of like going on our own Quilting Retreat! 🙂

It wasn’t a lot of snow, but it was beautiful!!
The mountains in the distance and the woods all around us were
covered in a nice blanket of snow.
We were inside, cooking, quilting…
I felt a little like the frontier women of the 1800’s…
quilting, tending the fire, roasting a nice chicken in the oven. 🙂

Thankfully, I didn’t have to kill the chicken myself.
Some of the modern conveniences I am totally ok with.

This is the quilt top my daughter was able to put together.
She didn’t get to finish it (she still has to add the borders and quilt it).
But she did get a lot of it done and I think it looks so pretty!
I love the fabrics and colors in this.

These are the two mini charm packs I took with me.
I wanted to make something small, like a table runner.

These little packs were $3.75 each, there’s 42 squares, 1 1/2 in. each.
I got them from Missouri Star Quilt Co. They have great prices.
They also have a great daily deal program.

I used the 1 1/2 in squares in strips of four across and then in the border,
I made half triangles for the border using a tutorial.
It made it go so much faster, and much more fun.

I didn’t have a pattern to follow, but I just used what I had on hand.
I like how it turned out and can’t wait to finish it.

We had a lot of fun on our trip
and I’ll be posting more of our “adventures” in the next posts.

Have a blessed weekend,
Daisy

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Christmas Quilt

Posted in Quilting, Sewing, tagged Christmas, quilt, Quilting, Sewing on March 5, 2014| 15 Comments »

I’m either very late or
very, very early…

I’ve been working on a quilt I started at the end of last year.

I bought Christmas fabric at 60-75% off!
It’s been a lot of fun piecing these squares together.
It goes fast!

Here’s a few of the blocks I’ve pieced together:

I haven’t trimmed these yet, and
keep in mind
I’m only a beginner.
Not all the points are perfect,
but I figure that in the large quilt,
it won’t be too obvious. (I hope!)

I am hoping to have this one done
before Christmas this year! 🙂

Happy Quilting,

Daisy

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Amish Restaurant

Posted in Cooking, Gifts, Quilting, Travel, tagged Cooking, florida, Food, quilts, restaurants, Travel on January 18, 2014| 12 Comments »

If you’re ever in Sarasota, FL . . .

I highly recommend you plan to stop at this restaurant.

I chose the buffet,
Just because I can try all the different
choices.
Everything is homemade,
and you can taste it!!

They also have a beautiful gift shop upstairs with all kinds of items you will just love to look at!
Quilts, one-of-a-kind little things,
And a whole section just for
Vera Bradley items…

This one was my personal favorite,
But I was good and put it back.

The day we were there they had all their Christmas items on clearance…

The displays were so beautiful!
I bought some vintage ornaments that ended up being only $2!!

They also have a “Country Store” section in the front with lots of goodies to take home, like homemade cookies, jams, apple butter, rolls, and so on.

Have I made you hungry??
I am!!

Have a good weekend everybody!!
Daisy

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Shoebox Exchange

Posted in Quilting, Sewing, tagged Quilting on December 7, 2013| 17 Comments »

This year my daughter and I participated in a fun shoebox exchange with others who enjoy quilting and sewing.

All year we collect fat quarters in the colors our “secret quilter” requested; two each month. We also add fun little items such as a pin cushion, ornament, sewing needles, and …chocolate!

My Shoebox arrived this week!
Let me show you all the goodies that came inside:

Just look at all those fun fabrics! The colors I chose were red and yellow.
I can hardly wait to sit down and start planning & sewing.

My “secret quilter” sent these cute little ornaments…

Here’s a close up of some of the other surprises …

She also included this fabric with beautiful scenes…

And last but certainly NOT least
(Drumroll, please)
Homemade peppermint fudge.
Wow. So delicious!

I also loved the pretty card she included,

And a postcard from her home State

It was so much fun opening my Shoebox and going through all the little gifts!
Thank you to my secret quilter friend!
🙂

Have a wonderful weekend!
Daisy

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Small Book Cover

Posted in Gifts, Quilting, Sewing, tagged Book Cover, Gifts, Journal, Quilting, Sewing on November 15, 2013| 12 Comments »

This is a small book cover I made for a little Bible I have. The cover was badly worn but the size is nice and compact, perfect for taking to church and on trips.

I put a little notebook in the outside pocket for taking notes or writing thoughts.

This is the inside. I put in two pockets, one on each side for pencil, highlighter, bookmark, and whatever else I need.

It was a fun and quick project.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Daisy

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Colorful Quilt

Posted in Quilting, tagged church, missions, quilt, Quilting on June 25, 2013| 18 Comments »

A friend of ours is the pastor of a church which is getting ready for a missions trip to El Salvador.

They are going to be working with children, so a group of the women got together on a couple Saturdays and sewed quite a bunch of dresses for little girls sizes 1-10.
They also got shorts and shoes for the boys.

From the scraps left over after all that sewing, a few of the women who are quilters decided to make a prayer reminder for the church.

It has been hanging for weeks now in the church and I couldn’t wait to share it with you…

Click on photos to enlarge.

Did you notice all the colorful thread quilting on the black border? I also like the different directions of the squares, and the scrappy look.

I am praying for the group going to El Salvador. ….and I think I might just make a colorful quilt like this one.

I better look for my bag of scraps…not sure where it is after the move!

Happy quilting 🙂

Daisy

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Work in Progress – Postage Stamp Quilt

Posted in Quilting, Sewing, tagged Fabric, Quilting, Sewing on January 23, 2013| 30 Comments »

It’s so much fun to work with pre-cut fabric!

If you haven’t tried it yet, and you like to sew, I encourage you to try these colorful, beautiful, pre-cut bundles.

They come in endless varieties of color combinations and different sizes of cuts…
… i.e. Charm Packs (5″X5″ squares),
Layer Cakes (10″X10″),
Fat Quarters (18″X21″),
and other variations of these.

This particular one is called a jelly roll.

I know. They all have fun names.

Jelly rolls usually come in rolls of 24 strips measuring 2 1/2″ X 44″. This particular one had 20 strips.

You can see the nice bright colors.

Fun fabrics!!

When you open up the jelly roll, you usually find 2 strips of each fabric.

The great thing is that they are all coordinated for you and precut!

This saves a lot of time, trying to match fabrics and find a variety that will go together,
not to mention all that cutting!

I wanted to make a Queen-size quilt, so I added some more fabrics from my stash that I thought worked well with the jelly roll.
I’ll use these for more strips, borders, and binding.

They balance the brightness of the jelly roll fabrics.

I cut some white fabric into same size strips as the jelly roll and sewed 3 strips together…

Some with the white center and prints on the top and bottom… some with the print center and 2 whites.

This goes pretty fast and soon I had a stack.

It was so much fun working with these bright, colorful fabrics!

The white makes the prints look great!

I then cut those strips into 2 1/2″ strips…

This is what they look like when I put all the little stacks together.

Now, all I have to do is sew them together to make a Postage Stamp Quilt. I will be working on this in the days to come…

I’ll post on the finished top as soon as I finish it. 🙂

If you’re interested in these precut fabrics, you can get them in many different places now.

Here are just a few of my favorites:

Hobby Lobby
Great store! I always use a coupon when I go. If you have their phone app you don’t have to worry about cutting newspaper coupons!

Missouri Star Quilt Co.
Great online store. They have a wonderful Daily Deal special online!

Wal-Mart
The selection at the store is so much better than online!

Joann Fabrics
Limited selection but you can get a significant discount if you use a coupon. (They also have a phone app available) I recommend you buy at the store since they don’t have much available online.

There are many other sites but these are the ones I have found to be the most economical… and of course, that’s important to us, isn’t it?!

(I am not advertising for these companies, they don’t know I exist :))

Happy Quilting!

Daisy

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