Daisy a Day is done, and I’m celebrating with a GIVEAWAY!!!

Call it what you will – Daisy a Day, Joseph’s Coat, Tea Leaves, Lafayette Orange Peel or Lover’s Knot - I really, REALLY love this quilt, which is just as well because I’ve spent more than 18 months piecing and quilting it entirely by hand.

Months ago I promised you a look at the three queen sized quilts I finally finished in July. You’ve seen my Whirligig Quilt, then Ben’s and Sunny’s Wedding Quilt, and now (drumroll……..) here’s my favourite, Daisy a Day.
You can read here how some of my friends and I came to be making this quilt. Robbie’s version became a cot quilt, Jill’s is an elegant runner across the foot of her bed, and Gail is currently on the home stretch, hand quilting her QS version made from delicate Liberty fabrics.

I love scrappy quilts, the more fabrics the better, so choosing colours for my petals was a snap. I simply dived into my humungous scrap pile(s) and chose the prettiest and happiest pieces I could find. Then I teamed them together with white-on-white polka dot filler shapes to make them “pop”.

Ardco metal templates (the 12 inch size) made cutting the shapes easy, though getting all six petals to meet nicely at the centre of each circle, with no gaps, proved a tad challenging at times. I’m glad I didn’t let it stress me too much because looking at the finished quilt I think you’d need a search party to find those wonky joins now.

A wise friend advised me to machine quilt this monster. After all, I do lead a busy life. But after seeing Robbie’s cot-sized version, meticulously hand-quilted and cuddly, I threw caution to the winds and decided to hand quilt mine too.
I feared my wise counselor might think I’d lost my marbles and many would agree, so I kept this a secret!

On Easter Saturday this year I spent the afternoon crawling around on my hands and knees on my bedroom floor, sandwiching and pinning the quilt to within an inch of its life.
Why pin, and not baste, as is more usual for hand quilting? Aha, I had a cunning plan
Placing a safety pin in every white space across the quilt, and counting them in as I pinned, meant I could easily keep track of my progress. By counting the pins out as I quilted each of these negative spaces I didn’t accidentally miss a space, and I marked them off on a card, one by one. 

It was very simple to remove any pins that got in the way of my quilting hoop as I went.
I was surprised and delighted to find that the whole quilt only took me 5 weeks to quilt. I guess quilting for a couple of hours each night in front of the TV, as well as whenever I attended one of my quilting groups, added up quickly.

The binding colour was a no-brainer! There are so many gorgeous colours in this quilt, but somehow the bright pinks called to me the loudest . No surprises there.

If this block design is making your heart go pitty-pat, then I think you’ll want to enter my GIVEAWAY to win one of three prizes generously donated by JoNell at QUILTSMITH Ltd (the business in Virginia, USA, not the shop by the same name in Sydney, Australia).
To be in the running, just pop over to the Ardco Templates by Quiltsmith website and look through all the wonderful sizes and shapes available for your piecing pleasure. Then come back here and leave me a comment telling me your favourite Ardco template shape.
That’s it. No other hoops to jump through (I don’t like them myself), though you’ll make me a very happy blogger if you choose to become a Follower, and I’ll be grinning from ear to ear if you tell your friends about my giveaway on Facebook and Twitter.
*** Please make sure I can contact you by email. I’m afraid I can’t count you in the giveaway if you’re a “No reply” blogger ‘cos I have no way of letting you know when you win!
I’ll close comments at midnight Australian Eastern Daylight Saving Time on Sunday 18th November, and I’ll draw three winners soon after.

* * *

First Prize is a set of 12 inch Tea Leaves templates (TLW-12) plus a set of 6 inch Tea Leaves templates (TLW-6).

Second Prize is a set of 12 inch Tea Leaves templates (TLW-12).

Third Prize is a set of 6 inch Tea Leaves templates (TLW-6)

* * *

You’re going to love ARDCO templates!

First of all, they’re metal. Nice and strong, and accurate. Unlike perspex templates, the edges aren’t going to chip or corners break off.

You can get the tip of a mechanical pencil right into those corner slits (and if you can’t, all you need is a teensy rub with the finest grade sandpaper to widen the slits just a smidge).

See the rough, grainy surface on the underside of the template?

(This one’s well-worn after tracing all my Daisy a Day pieces!)

When you position this baby on your fabric ready for tracing it’s not going anywhere. Honestly, it grips and makes tracing a breeze, especially if you use a sandpaper board underneath your fabric. No skidding!

Being “window” templates, too, it’s easy to position them so you can fussy cut your fabrics.

Finally, once you’ve traced along both the inside and outside edges of the template you’ll have a nice stitching line, perfect for hand-piecing!

* * *

But wait, there’s more …

JoNell is offering all my readers a discount of 10% 20% off any templates on the website for 2 weeks (up until Sunday 25th November). Simply enter the discount code JIS78 when you enter your name at the checkout. What are you waiting for?
Just added:
* There is no actual box for entering that discount code at the checkout, but if you simply type it beside your name this will identify you to JoNell as one of my readers, and worthy of special treatment (ie 20% off).
* International shipping, she says, is either at the same price quoted on the website for US shipping, or very little more. After all, these templates don’t weigh much at all.
* Finally, if you have any questions at all you can email JoNell (who is a really lovely person to deal with) at rquilt@rcn.com


Stats:
88 in x 96 in (approx)
Daisy petals - Kaffe Fassett brights, along with other bright, modern scraps.
Background fabric - White tone-on-tone spot from the Polka Party III range by Holly Holderman for Lakehouse Drygoods
Warm & White Cotton batting.
Pieced and quilted by hand using Aurifil 40 weight thread in white (2024).
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