SHIPSHEWANA

It was a glorious day. My DH had the day off work and my Japanese friends Yuki and Hiro took time out of their busy schedules to go on a road trip with us. So we packed up the car and drove to Shipshewana, Indiana. Now some would ask why there? Well, for the person with a serious fabric addiction, this place is like Nirvana. You see, it is an Amish community. So in addition to fabulous quilts and a wonderful assortment of fine, hand crafted furniture are amazing fabric stores!! Yuki and Hiro had never been to an Amish town (I'm going out on a limb here and guessing there are no Amish in Japan) The first pictures are of Yuki and me and then Hiro and me in front of the most amazing fabric shop, Lolly's. Yuki and I had so much fun inside that we forgot to take some photos there so had to settle for some outside as it was closed when we thought to go back and take some pictures. We are planning on going back so I will *try* to remember to take pictures inside then. (As I age, I become more forgetful! And I will add another year very shortly, on Wed 7/11, lucky huh?) The first place we went was the Pretzel shop. It is inside the Davis Mercantile building right by Lolly's. You can see Chris, and Hiro and I at the shop. The pretzels are made from scratch and are really wonderful. Then Yuki and I went into Nirvana, er, I mean Lolly's. We emerged 4 hours later (much to Chris' and Hiro's dismay) They were such good sports. Have I told you how much I love my guy?? Anyway,Yuki and I got many new fabrics for some of the projects we are working on and I didn't even spend as much as I thought I would, so it was good. I really only bought things I needed for current projects. (I was very proud of us!)

Then we went in some of the little shops and did some looking around. DH went and found out about a buggy tour so that is were we went next. These pictures are of us getting into the buggy and of riding in a buggy and of our Amish driver. We had a buggy actually pass us and that is when our driver told us that many of the horses they purchase are old, retired race horses that weren't good enough for racing. Although he assured me they were plenty good enough for buggy travel. We even drove by his home and saw his daughter leaving the home after coming to help his wife with the housework.

It was a good time although we didn't make it to the other fabric shop or the meat and cheese shop, called, suprisingly, Yoder's meats and cheese and Yoder's Department Store. We did go to the Blue Gate and have dinner. It is a family style chicken dinner and the food was wonderful! We were starving, but the fried chicken was really good. I think if we go back again Yuki and I will get our friend, Robin to go with us and we won't feel bad about just hitting the fabric shops! We did go to a shop that had Mercury glass Christmas ornaments and antique quilts. Yuki found a beautiful antique quilt with many lonestars on it with all original feed sack fabrics and all hand pieced and hand quilted. It was fairly large, maybe double bed size but the shop only took cash or checks and they didn't have their checkbook with them so maybe another visit. I think we should have taken a picture of that one too but we didn't. Next time...