Quilt Retreat in Shipshewana, Part 1

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all your condolences on the passing of my cousin.  It has been a difficult thing and has given me lots of cause to reflect.  I'll share a little more about that later.

Right now, I'd like to try to get back in the saddle a little again.  I have so much to get caught up on!  You may remember that a while back I went on retreat with my quilt guild (the Kalamazoo Log Cabin Quilters).  This was toward the end of September.  Yes, that's how far behind I am!  We went to Shipshewana, Indiana for our retreat.  That's only about an hour from my house, so that was great.  Shipshewana is a very Amish area, so it's very quaint and a wonderful place to hang out.

Here is a picture of the room we were in.  It was HUGE, and the lighting was great.  We had 100 people from our guild come to the retreat.  We stayed at the Farmstead Inn.  It is like a conference center, so they had this big room for us, and we all had hotel rooms down the hallway.  It was just great.

Here is the view from teh other end of the room.  I was sitting down near the windows, but it really didn't matter, because the light was great everywhere in the room.

When we first checked in, there were these little goodie baskets for each of us.  They were gifts from teh local fabric stores.

This was from Lolly's, a pretty awesome fabric store.  More about that in a minute.  A neat new ruler.  Always love those.

And inside, a fat eighth, some chocolates, and a coupon for the store.  Yay!

And this coupon from Yoder Department Store, another pretty good fabric store (as well as awesome shoe store and anything else you can imagine....it's a true, old-fashioned department store!)

We went shopping right off the bat.  We started at Yoder's, but for some reason, I neglected to take photos there!  We then hit Lolly's.  Oh, my.  This is a great store!

They have almost every kind of fabric you can imagine.  I made a bee line for the civil war fabrics.  (But they also had batiks out the wazoo, moderns, 1930s reproductions, you name it!)  Loved these pin cushions.  Simple, yet effective!

Loved their wool.  Loved this sample block made up from the book Pennies From Heaven.  I have been eyeing this book every time I go into a quilt shop.  I mean for months now.  I finally caved and bought it.  In part, it's because I've loved watching what Sue is making from this book.  (Sue, since you moved your blog, I can't find it again.  Something is messed up in my reader and it just goes to your old one.  Please leave me a comment with your blog address so I can find you again!)  I need to make this, but it's going ot have to wait.  LOVE IT!

EDIT:  Sue e-mailed me and here is her URL if you want to see the lovely things she is making.  Thanks, Sue!

I wanted one of every fat quarter in this display, but I was a good girl.  I only chose one.

 

Lolly's is so big, their store spills into the lower level, too.  We each got to pick a free fat quarter from this boat.  That was fun to rifle through!

I did really well in this store, until I saw this.  It's one of Edyta Sitar's patterns.  It's called Eldon.  You all know I love her.  I fell in love.  Bought the pattern.  Bought the acrylic ruler to cut the star diamond shapes.  And yes, bought the fabric to make this, too.  I'm going to make it for my bed in our bedroom.  I just love it.  I will need to add another border to make it big enough, but this is going to be awesome.  I need to finish some other things before I allow myself to start on it, though.

This is a really awesome shop.  I mean like, destination quilt shop shop.  The whole town is.  So, if you are ever in that area, it's definitely worth the stop.  Plus, there are other quilt stores, antique stores, good Amish bakeries, etc.  you should check it out sometime!

Well, that's about all I have time for now.  I'll do two more posts about retreat, I think.  Next, I'll show you what people were working on.  Then, I will show you another cute shop we visited.  It was a really great, relaxing retreat.  I'm ready to go back right now!  :-)

Hope you are all well.

Until next time,

Mama Pea

Comments

[Lynn]

My guild retreat is this coming weekend. We've got 20 people going, which is the most we've had since I joined the guild. I can't imagine 100 people! Heck, our guild only has about 60 members and only about half attend regularly.

[carolld]

I'm drooling already. I can't wait to get down there. Looks like you guys had a great time!

[Maggie Szafranski]

Looks like it was an awesome retreat! I am on the retreat committee for our guild. Our retreat will be in March!

[Sue]

Oh goodness. I love everything about Shipshewana and am planning on going with my mother again in a few weeks.
The ladies set up in the conference room all look so organized. What a large group of ladies! That must have been sew much fun:)