Shipshewana Shop Hop Part 1

I have so much to share I just know it is going to take more than one post. I hope you are ready for the ride! Just know that only some of the pics will be blogged about and *many* more are over at my Flickr account (click on the sidebar link to view). Ok, with that disclaimer here goes.

I picked PTM up around 7am and we drove to the farm to get LTW, who was driving. Now you have to know about PTM, she is a wonderful friend and I love her to death. She always has the perfect little touches to everything she does. I feel blessed to have her as my friend. She brought each of us our own bag so as we got our *treasures* we could put them into our own bag and then when we got home we could pick up our own bag and have our stuff. Hers was pink with black polka dots, LTW's had chickens on it (of course it did) and mine, what else? Cats of course!

Adorable,right? Ittook us quite some time ~2.5 hours) to arrive at our first shop and it happened to be the littlest one too. It was called Homespun Treasures. I was so excited I could barely stand it. Here are "the girls" before we went in. And a peek inside the shop too.

I didn't buy anything here but LTW found some cute dinosaur fabric. Back to the car and now I was driving and LTW was navigating. Buckle up gals and let's hit the road! Next stop, Caroline's Cottage in Rome City. What a cute shop with very nice owners too. The drive to this shop took us by a beautiful lake (but I didn't get any photos as I was the driver)

A very quaint shop. Here is LTW and me on their front porch. They had some really nice red and white fabric that had to come home with me.

Ok ladies, pack it in and let;s go to Emmatown Fabrics. While this shop didn't have a lot of anything any of us found useful (I do think PTM got some blues for her snowman quilt though) there was a funny thing that happened when we pulled up to park.
As you can see from the photo the only parking is in the front of the shop.

Of course on shop hop day it was full. So I waited for a spot to open up. *Finally* someone pulled out and we zipped in. The person right next to us was pulling out and someone was sitting in the spot we had just left, waiting to be able to pull into the spot that was vacating. Didn't quite happen the way they thought. The person pulled out and some little old lady zipped right in taking it from the people that had been patietntly stalking waiting for said spot! She was not even aware that she had taken anyone else's spot either. There seemed to be a lot of folks not paying attention to things that day. Several times we had to say "excuse me" to get someone to move that was blocking an entryway when if they were paying attention they would not have positioned themselves in the way in the first place. But I digress!

We loaded ourselves up and headed off to The Quilt Shop at Essenhaus next. This shop was inside a cute little gift shop. Just look at that adorable window dressing!

We happened to see these adorable guys all over the place!

This is what we saw as we walked up to the shop

They had a really nice selection and variety of fabric with a few really different lines of patterns. Here is what I brought home with me

I love that "Always Kiss Me Goodnight" but will probably use some more contemporary colors, and that aqua? I am going to try my hand at making the skirt I have listed in the tutorial on my side bar. I will use some other fabric the first time but don't you think this will be a cute skirt??
We decided to stop and eat lunch at this point and you will never guess what? PTM brought the most magnificent spread for us! We had decided to bring our food so that we could eat whenever we wanted to and no lines. PTM sure knows how to do it right!
You will not even believe it but there just happened to be a picnic table here so this is where we ate.

It is difficult to see but here was our lunch:
Salmon, chicken and egg salads, cheese, deviled eggs, veggies, grapes, fresh pineapple, watermelon, pickles, condiments, chips and of course Diet Coke! What can I say? These 2 are the BEST!!

I will leave you mid way through the day so I can go and clean lettuce for the salad I am bringing to the baby shower I have to go to today. More on that later too. I am wanting to have a little sewing time before I go also, since I spent about 4 hours gardening yesterday and was too tired to do any sewing yesterday. More later!