Quilt Festival on National Quilt Day

Back in January at a Quilt Shop in Bradenton, I picked up a copy of the Country Register (a bi-monthly newspaper that highlights Quilt Shops and quilting-related events) and saw an ad for a Quilt Festival in Trenton, FL on March 18th. 

Ooh – it sounded like fun, and we wouldn’t be too far away, so I put it on my calendar.  Of course, “not too far away” is a subjective term, and not everybody has the same opinion of how far is too far! 

I lured Tom in with the promise of, “There are going to be antique cars and tractors, too!”

We arrived in the historic town of Trenton, FL,

and we were both amazed at the numbers of people in town.  It was very busy!  The main street was closed down, with booths set up for vendors selling crafts and food, as well as quilting supplies.

Quilts were hanging from most of the buildings in town.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We walked through some of the booths, and then into the Quilt Museum.

The rooms in the museum were filled with antique quilts and antique furniture.  Many of them in this large room were for sale.

Beautiful!

As we moved into the other rooms, the quilts were grouped by theme, and were just on loan from personal collections.

Miniature Quilts

Victorian Quilts

 

Novelty Quilts – some of these were really intricate, with embroidery and embellishments!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Really interesting!

Back outside, we continued walking through the booths,

and spotted some interesting items!

Next up – more quilts!

 

This was the Quilt Guild’s theme room – African Elephants.  There were some really cute elephant quilts!

More quilts on the porch . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tom was having so much fun!!

This looked like the “husband hangout”,

and we finally found the tractors and cars!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OK, so there weren’t very many of them . . .

but there was a tractor quilt, too!

We reached the Quilt Shop that was the center of the Quilt Festival, and Tom stayed outside to look at the cars, while I went inside to look around.

Somebody’s favorite color must be orange – or they are just Gators fans!

The Quilt Shop was packed – not just with shoppers, but also with quilt displays and tables where they were serving lunch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The shop looks nice, with lots of fabrics, and they were offering 10% off during the festival, but I didn’t buy anything.  Lines were really long, and I didn’t really need anything right now.

The classroom was set up for Christmas.

There are also a series of barn quilts located throughout the surrounding area, and several located within town.

 

After walking through all of the buildings, we finished looking through the vendor booths, and admired more quilts hanging around town.  There was live music, too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were even some kids setting up a maypole for the festival.

More quilts!

 

It was a beautiful spring day – perfect for walking around town and admiring all of these beautiful quilts on display outside!

We stopped for lunch at Subway on our way out of town, and on the way back home, we made an unscheduled stop which turned into part 2 of our adventure for the day . . . but that will have to be a separate blog post!