Great Weekend!

This weekend Hubby and I had the chance to get away. We had a wonderful time in the Shipshewana, IN area. I have wrote about a past trip there here and here. I just love this part of the country. There is a large Amish and Mennonite community here, which means quilts, fabrics and good food as far as I am concerned. I am going to take you on a little tour of some of the places we visited. The first stop was in Middlebury, a town close to Shipshewana. The store is called Gohn Bros. It is in a very old building. The floors are the original creaky wood and the ceiling is tin. Bolts of fabric are lined up alone one of the walls. Sorry about the glare on the windows. I didn't take my camera inside. I am very careful not to offend anyone by taking their photos (The Amish do not like their photos taken.) You never know what you are going to find in this store. I think they get some odds and ends bolts because there isn't a giant amount of any one type of fabric. At times they have great reproduction fabrics at great prices and sometimes they don't have any, or very few. One fabric that I found just screamed out my name. It wasn't a repro, it was a Christmas fabric that has a vintage look. It was a whole $3.00 a yard, which a little under half of the average price tag there. I think I bought 9 yards. I'm not sure what I will be doing with it, but it needed to go home with me. I found a few Civil War repro's too. I left the store with a big smile on my face. Oh yeah, another thing, if you go to this area of the country take your checkbook. Many stores do not take credit cards but they are happy to take your personal checks.
The next place I hit was in Shipshewana. It is called Yoder Fabric Dept. Store. It is a very unique place. When you first walk in the door you see a small IGA Grocery store to your immediate right. On the left side you will see the shoe department part of the the department side. I didn't think to take photos of the layout - sorry! Keep walking and you see the entrance to the department store side to the left and a hardware store to the right. In the middle of it all is benches and rocking chairs for weary husbands to wait on their wives. I don't know of any other place that has so much under one roof. While I am drooling over fabric Hubby can be shopping in the Hardware side or watching the people go by in comfort in the middle part of the store. When I walk into the store I usually take an immediate left and keep veering left to hit the fabric section. They have just tons of fabric. Their fabric prices have increased over the years, but they still average at least a $1.00 or more less then most quilt shops. Their sales people are more then helpful. I am so sorry I didn't think to take photos inside, I guess the anticipation of new fabrics to add to my stash just took over. I did find some wonderful CW fabrics and was able to find fabric for my sashing and cornerstones for my Civil War Diary quilt. I have to leave for quilt guild now, so I guess that concludes the tour for now. More photos to follow!