The week before last, we returned to North Carolina for a week for my partner John’s business conference trip. Our previous trip to North Carolina was in August 2021 and here are the two blog posts from that trip: Wilmington, North Carolina in Black and White and Wilmington, North Carolina in Color.

We needed to return to Wilmington, NC for his work conference, but first we stopped for an evening and 1/2 a day in Raleigh, NC which I’ve never visited before. I will share a little about our trip to Raleigh in an upcoming post, but for this post I wanted to share photos of the quilt shop we stopped at during our drive from Raleigh to Wilmington, NC on Sunday January 30.

For a quilter, besides the thrill of returning home to fondle your new fabric purchases or completing a major quilting project, is there anything more awesome than wandering around a quilt shop you’ve never visited before? For me, it is one of life’s true pleasures!

I may not buy something at every quilt shop I visit but I love seeing the “creative potential” of the fabric, patterns, samples quilts, etc.

So for you, here is my wander around Cary Quilting Company in Cary, North Carolina:

And here is the very patient partner John, waiting while I wandered about the shop:

Hope you enjoyed that virtual wander, sorry you could not fondle the fabric with me!

The staff was very friendly and the wonderful woman who rang up my purchases (I bought a pattern), gave me this wonderful pin as a gift to welcome me to the shop and to North Carolina:

It can be worth chatting with friendly people in quilt shops!

Postscript

Before we went to the quilt shop, we stopped for an amazing seafood lunch at a Farmers Market in Raleigh called the State Farmers Market. We ate at this friendly and amazing fish fry/seafood fry place called N.C. Seafood Market.

Oh my goodness. We are “landlocked” in Colorado and do not get much access to fresh seafood (unless a Colorado restaurant has a system to fly in seafood fresh each day), so we were in “seafood heaven” at this place.

The food was very reasonably priced and tasty is an understatement. It was so good that on our way back to Raleigh (we flew home to Denver via Raleigh) we stopped there again for lunch (and they recognized us and welcomed us back)!

I did not take any photos, I was just too excited! But here is a photo that I downloaded from Google Images from the restaurant to give you an idea of what our platter looked like:

Hmm…suddenly I am very hungry…

Next couple of posts I will share more about our trip to North Carolina.

Quilt Shop Tours, tierneytravels

The Fig Leaf Quilt Shop, Fort Collins CO

March 4, 2021August 18, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I know what you need right now, you need a virtual quilt shop tour don’t you?

(Actually, Mike the Miniature Schnauzer thinks what you need right now is a follow up from his guest blog post Guest Blogger: Obsession with Making Crocheted Dishcloths, and show you he did finally get a haircut:)

Okay now back to the quilt shop tour post…

A couple weekends ago, Mike stayed with his babysitter and John and I headed to Fort Collins, Colorado for the weekend (it is only like a 1.5 hour drive from Denver). While in Fort Collins, we stopped at The Fig Leaf Quilt Shop (and Furniture Store)!

John had some errands to run (he bought a new bike in Fort Collins and had to go pick it up) so he left me unsupervised for an hour at a quilt shop!

Here are some images from my leisurely wander about the shop:

It has been a long time since I wandered around a quilt shop, I cannot begin to tell you how delicious an experience it was! They shop also had a friendly staff and I enjoyed chatting with quilt shop staff.

While wandering I came across a quilt I absolutely wanted to make. The image does not do it justice but it is an awesome relatively simple pattern with a panel in the center:

I could not control myself and bought most of the fabrics (and the panel) as well as the pattern card:

I also bought a couple extra items like a some cool canvas fabric with Edison-style light bulbs; some random Cotton + Steel fabric yardage; a random fat quarter on sale; and a fat quarter set (that I absolutely did not need!).

The Fig Leaf Quilt Shop is also a furniture store! I guess they went with a multipurpose shop concept!

We did more than visit a quilt shop while visiting Fort Collins for the weekend, we also went new bike for John (who is an avid cyclist), visited some of the awesome craft breweries, visited some thrift shops (I love thrifting, see my series of posts Thrift Shop Adventures), and we had some wonderful meals.

One of the most memorable restaurant visits while in Fort Collins was to The Farmhouse at Jessup Farms. I love farm-to-table restaurants and this one was wonderful. In addition to the main restaurant (and farm of course), they also had an onsite brewery, smaller eatery areas, and gift shops.

Here are some photos from the complex and our delicious meal at the main restaurant (which included pork belly on grits which was 1000 times more delicious than it sounds!):

It was also awesome to go on a road trip, we were going a little stir crazy at home and I really enjoyed the post of one of my blogging buddies, The Library Lady Travels – Covid Car Trip? Be Safe and Have a Blast., which inspired my idea to go on a road trip!

I love the scenery on the drive from Denver to Fort Collins (we took back roads to make it even more scenic), and I will close this post with an image from my passenger seat:

Quilt Shop Tours, tierneytravels

California Quilting Sisters Adventures, Part III

February 24, 2020August 18, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

If you are just joining us, you can check out these two previous posts:

California Quilting Sisters Adventures, Part II February 21, 2020
California Quilting Sisters Adventures, Part I February 17, 2020

This is the third post closing out the series on stories and photos about a visit with my Northern California based “Quilting Sisters”, Kathy and Lisa in April 2019.

This post is all about our Northern California QUILT SHOP HOPPING 🙂

The quilt/fabric shops we visited included one in Auburn, California:

Leal’s Coop: Farmhouse Decor and Fabric

And three in the San Francisco “Bay Area”:

New Pieces Quilt Store & Gallery (Berkeley)
Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics (Berkeley)
Bay Quilts (Richmond)

bay area quilting — *Image: Google maps*

As you can see by the map image above there were move quilt shops in the Bay Area but we could only fit in so much in one day (smile) and still have a proper Quilting Sister visit (to include lunch, ice cream and wandering about window shopping at non-quilting shops!).

Leal’s Coop

The first quilt shop in our Northern California quilt shop hop adventure was Leal’s Coop in Auburn, CA which was both quilting fabric shop and home decor shop. Lisa had another commitment so Kathy and I began the shop hop adventure on our own.

The shop owner was delightful and she was working on gift boxes for customers with her monthly gift box subscription:

After a wonderful wander about this shop and delightful chat with the shop owner, we wandered around the other surrounding shops:

We stopped for a delicious lunch at a vegan restaurant:

And I snuck in some Black & White photography time.

New Pieces Quilt Store & Gallery

The next day, Lisa joined us and we drove to Berkeley to continue the quilt shop hop adventure beginning with New Pieces Quilt Store & Gallery.

This shop had an amazing and eclectic collection of fabrics and a wonderful and friendly staff. We spent a very long time in this shop!

They also had an amazing collection of Japanese fabrics.

And here are some unusual patterned fat quarters I bought at the shop (who knows what I will make with them but I just loved them and I do not know why!)

After an extensive amount of time we were ready for lunch and had a delicious lunch as well as dessert at The Public Market.

Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics

Another amazing fabric shop we visited in Berkeley was Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics.

This shop immediately made me smile with this Rumi quote on the glass window in front as you enter the shop:

This shop was not a quilt shop but a fabric and sewing notions shop. It was crammed full of fabrics for all types of sewing – home decor, apparel, quilting, etc.

I ended up buying these amazing pieces of canvas fabric (yes, impulse buy!):

Bay Quilts

The third fabric/quilt shop we visited in the Bay Area was Bay Quilts. This quilt shop also had an art galley inside with rotating exhibits by local fiber artists.

Are you exhausted from all the virtual quilt/fabric shop hopping in this post (smile).

I had a wonderful day of quilt/fabric shop hopping with my California Quilting Sisters!

By the way my Quilting Sister Lisa was able to take her fabric purchases from the day back home to be sewn on with her newly custom painted Singer Featherweight:

Postscript

While staying at Kathy’s house during my Northern CA trip, it was fun to revisit several of my fiber art pieces she owns which includes as batik rope basket I made her as a gift; and a table runner she bought from my tierneycreates Etsy shop* years ago.

(*believe or not this blog began in 2013 as vehicle for my Etsy shop – the blog kept going but the Etsy shop did not!)

Oh and let’s close out this series of posts about my trip in April 2019 to Northern California, with one more image of the sweet (and insane) Chocolate Labrador puppy Riley that was one of the special treats during my visit.

Here she is taking a break from her very active puppy-ness!

Creative Inspiration

Creative Inspiration: Fabric

March 25, 2015November 29, 2015 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

A quilter walks into a quilt shop and see fabric. The quilter does not just see fabric, a quilter sees INSPIRATION! In the post “Creative Inspiration: Family” I introduced a series of posts exploring my resources for creative inspiration. This post discusses another important source of my creative inspiration: FABRIC.

Have you ever browsed in a quilt shop and been strongly drawn to a particular bolt of fabric or to an entire collection? You do not have a project in mind for this fabric but you know you just absolutely positively have to have the fabric (or a sample of each fabric from the entire collection) as it inspires you to make something with it (eventually)! However, every quilter knows this is the primary source for an out of control fabric stash, eh?

Fabric/Textiles are a major source of creative inspiration for me. When I find interesting and unique fabrics they inspire me to create something that honors their beauty. Last year I was fortunate enough to be given a small collection of African textiles from someone’s estate. I was overwhelmed with the richness and colors in these textiles. This inspired me to create a piece, called African Windows, to showcase these fabrics. I used a basic “attic windows” pattern concept where shadows are created by piecing a darker solid fabric (in this case black fabric) strategically to create the illusion of a window.

Below are photos of my quilt African Windows (2014) which was long arm quilted by Betty Anne Guadalupe of Guadalupe Designs.