Here is my last post about the weekend get-a-way that we had that was about two weeks ago. Took me long enough to post it huh? *G* In the Davis Mercantile building in Shipshewana there is a huge carousel. I believe that at least half of the animals on it were hand carved. You could watch the progress on the ride as it was being built/carved. I told hubby that I would ride it if he would. I thought he would say no. He just grinned at me and said of course! Now you have to ride it! It had been a very long time since I had been on a carousel. I picked a horse that was low to the ground so my little short legs could reach to get up on it. We went around and around and around. At the end of the ride of course my horse stopped at the highest setting that it possible could! Ugh! Hubby got a good laugh at that and helped me navigate down. I neglected to mention that my friend Char, her Hubby and daughter came to Shipshewana for the day and she was my photographer. Thanks Char! It was fun having them there to laugh, share the pretzel experience with, and to just have a good time with.

I have been making progress with my Civil War Diary quilt blocks. I have a couple more to make and I will have the first row of blocks finished! Yippee! Unlike some of the others in the blogger group, I am making the blocks from just the Civil War Diary book. Others are combining the Civil War Diary book and Civil War Love Letters book for their quilts. This is the first sampler type of quilt that I have ever made and I wasn't sure if I would like making 121 different 6" blocks for one quilt. Well I do! After I finish the first book I will decide about the second one. I am glad I jumped in on this project. If you want to see some of the blocks that fellow bloggers have made click on the Sew Many Blocks icon on my side bar. It has been so much fun to see what others have done as far a fabric and color combinations!

Happy Easter

I would like to wish you a Happy Easter! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

Even More

Now, for more of the get-a-way trip we went on last weekend. In the town of Shipshewana, IN there is a wonderful placed called Davis Mercantile. There are many stores here under one roof and then some! A lot of time can be spent here. One place that I forgot to take a picture of was Jo Jo's Pretzels. Duh! I can't make a stop here without getting one of their big soft pretzels hot out of the oven. They have their own unique taste that can't be found elsewhere. I guess I will have to take the photo next time!
Of course my most favorite store in the whole building is Lolly's. Talk about a quilt store! They carry what I consider to be the "traditional" fabric (100% cotton fabric that isn't a reproduction), batiks, flannels, and lots of reproduction fabrics.
Here I am with the wonderful red Civil War Reproduction fabrics lined up at my feet. Hmmmmm what to choose? It was hard, but I did put a few of them back on the shelf - believe it or not!

This was a great display that I had to have a picture of. I have the patter for this Dresden Plate quilt - I was hoping by having my photo taken by it I would be inspired to make it soon! *G*






There are pros and cons about have Dear Hubby along with me at quilt stores. He has given me good advice about fabric choices at times - this one looks better then that one - and he is usually right. If I know I am going to spend a lot of time in the quilt shop he is usually content to take a nap in the car or read while I am shopping away. If it is a quick trip and I know what I want he will walk along with me and carry my fabric bolts to the cutting table for me. He was goofing around here trying to act like the weight of the fabric was too much - If you look, that wasn't even the reds. I had already taken then to the cutting table and they were waiting for me there. One thing that always amazes me though. When waiting in the car, or in the hallway at Yoder's Dept. store, he always knows when I am about to pay the bill. Does he have some kind of radar that goes ding ding ding when I pull the credit card out? I still have a couple of photos left to post of things in Davis Mercantile. but that will wait for another day!

I decided I had better post the photo of my purchases now as a few of you had mentioned you wanted to see it. I originally planned on holding this one back until last, but here it is now. Click on the photo if you want to see a more close up look at the yummy fabrics (Can fabrics really be yummy? I think so!) and a few other purchases I made. I had so much fun - in fact maybe too much fun! I bought a blue and a red fabric twice over the weekend without realizing it until I grouped the fabrics together for this photo. I guess I really liked them to buy them twice. Hubby says I get a glazed over look to my eyes when I am in a quilt store. Maybe he is right!

The following photos are of the Essenhause Inn. This is absolutely my most favorite hotel to stay in. It is so comfy. I forgot to take a picture of the outside of the Inn so I got this one off of their web site. To be honest it isn't the best at showing off the Inn but you will get the idea.
There are a couple of different types of rooms to stay in here, and this time we were in a room with a balcony that you could sit out on and enjoy the scenery. Too bad the weather wasn't very cooperative. It was just a little bit cool to sit outside for long. I took this photo looking out of the window. If the grass was green it would have been a prettier photo - use your imagination and imagine it as green. Isn't that a beautiful sight?
The next photo is part of the room itself. Each room is decorated differently and there is usually a quilt on the wall. Who wouldn't love to see this in the morning right after you wake up?

There is still more to come. Wait until you see Lolly's!

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!

My Oldest UFO

Julie asked fellow bloggers to show their oldest UFO. I think this is it...I think. The book that I got the pattern from calls it a Japanese Fan. I have used all 30's reproductions from the Aunt Grace line. There are some golden oldies in there from original fabric line. There are twelve rows in all, and I have four rows stitched together. On row five I found a stain of some kind on one of the white sections. That irritated me and I didn't feel like taking it out and replacing it at the time. I put it away - for a very long time. I am guessing twelve to thirteen years ago. I decided it was time to get it out and work on it. I replaced the white section and am ready to sew the fifth row on. Did I mention that I am hand piecing this? Why did I decided to hand piece it? I don't remember, it was too long ago! *G* Really, I like the portability of projects that are pieced by hand. I can work on them while on car trips. When hubby drives I will fall asleep if I don't have something to do. Hand work fits the bill! I will show another project soon that hubby calls my lifetime project. I may have been working on that project for about 10 years! So, what is your oldest UFO? And if you are a non quilter and have read this post this far probably out of kindness, what is your project that has been put up in the closet or forgotten about? I know you have some too even if it isn't quilt related!

Ouch! Root Canal

This morning I had a root canal procedure done on a tooth. While the procedure itself wasn't painful because of the wonderful Novocaine used, once it wore off I knew I had dental work done today! So much fun! I recently had a tooth break and had to have a crown put over the tooth. I was getting my bi-annual teeth cleaning/dental checkup when an abscess was discovered by an x-ray. I was not a happy camper. I am thankful that it was found before I was in pain with the abscess but was not happy to hear I was going to need a second crown within a four month time frame. Can you say cha-ching?

This afternoon while my mouth was letting me know of it's unhappiness I decided to distract myself by washing and ironing some fabric. Fabric is really about the only thing I iron willingly. I have a laundry basket that only holds quilting fabric that needs to be pre-washed. The basket is full. Guess what is on my list of things to do soon! Sadly (NOT) I will be going to some of my favorite quilting stores soon - guess what I will be bringing home with me? I will be good and try not to buy too much! Honest!!!!!!! I have finished one more Civil War block that I will be posting a photo of soon. One great thing about the Civil War blocks is that I have been going through my stash of reproduction fabrics for that era. I now have have a better idea of what colors I need to add or not add! I hope to fine some blacks, reds and blues. I do have lots of browns and pinks. I won't promise not to buy these colors, but I will focus on the three that I have the least of. I'll let you know what happens!

Oh No!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh no!!!!!!!! That is what I cried as I opened up the block to admire it after the last seam was sewn. This Civil War block is called Anxieties, and that is a great name for it! I had spent at least 3 hours on this block today(there are 67 pieces to this little 6" block!)only to see that I had made a bad mistake on it! The center square of the block was to be the floral fabric, not the red. As I was piecing I kept thinking it looked weird, but I would look at the book and decide that I was making it the correct way. Not! Live and learn I guess. I used the foundation paper piecing method which makes it much more difficult to take apart and resew. While I was making it I was also questioning my choice of fabrics. I still like the floral, but I think I would like a more solid looking red or maybe even blue that would show the pointed arrow looking patches a little better. If I liked the block even with it's color mess up I might just say "Oh I meant to do that!" and put it in the quilt anyway, but I don't. I won't be throwing this in the garbage, but it may get cut in half some day and used for another project.

I have two more Civil War blocks to show you though that turned out nice. The acid green and chrome yellow block is called Conscript Law and the red, white and blue one is called the Oath of Allegiance. I have a whopping four out of 121 block made so far. I hope I don't end up remaking more of these little beauties like I will with the Anxieties block!

Carolina Crosroads Progress

I finally pieced the blocks for my Carolina Crossroads quilt! My hubby wasn't home to hold up the quilt top for a photo, so I just had to lay it across the couch. I'm not sure if I will be putting a border on it or not. It is now residing with my other quilt tops that are waiting to be quilted. I like the way the top turned out. I would love to have it finished by July 4th since it has the patriotic feel. Hmmmmm I wonder! I understand that Bonnie Hunter is planning on another Mystery quilt. Will I be able to resist the temptation? Time will tell!


I have my second block for the Civil War Diary quilt made, Alarming Conditions. I love pink and brown together! Two more blocks are ready to be pieced. I think I will work a little on one, but the Monster is calling my name today! It is asking to please be released from the living room. That won't happen unless I spend a lot more time on it that is for sure!