Caroline's in Rome City and More.

Caroline's Cotton Cottage. Charmant!

What a great little shop. Packed with great stuff... but very tidy. Really, a pleasure.

...in which I bought a collection of pansy-colored fabrics...
solids, prints, homespun, solids and batiks - all playing nice together.

and a handful of repros. aren't these just gorgeous?!

sylvan springs

downtown LaGrange (?)

Gorgeous drive heading back to the retreat...

 

Some work from last night...

Kansashi flower. Fun and easy... need to finish with a nice vintage or fabric-covered button...
Then it's going straight into MARGOT's hair! (right, Gretchen?)

teeny tiny bintsy 1/4" English paper piecing hexies.

Some work from tonight...

Amish Churndash...

Shipshewana - Dear Jane Retreat

Well, I made it to the DJ retreat...but I might have been the last person to arrive...

We are not in Kansas anymore... (we're in Indiana)

The drive between the western 'burbs of Chicago and Indiana is a pretty one -
once you get past Gary.

Beautiful sunset tonight.

Lolly's treated our group to a catered dinner, then we hit the shops.
I picked up some notions and a Jennifer Chiaverini novel.

This is the "sewing room" at the conference center. It's a huge
room set up for 100 people. Two quilters split an 8' table.
Shared cutting and ironing stations... and a ginormous snack table.

We had a nice presentation by a quilt historian on women/quilts of the civil war.

This basket quilt was awesome. It was in such great shape it was kind of strange.
It was like someone had just made it yesterday and washed it once in warm water.

closeup of basket quilt.

More antique civil-war era eye candy.

Amish Country Strong

How's this for a "things that make me happy" post? Took a mini-road trip with a girlfriend last week to Amish Country, Indiana. We had a blast, driving backroads, shopping, and uh, talking! We didn't get as lucky with the dining as we had hoped but there's always next time... I'm hoping to attend a Dear Jane retreat in the fall (finally)... Have you ever been to Shipshewanna or Nappannee? Well, you should! Especially if you're a quilter. Here are some of my favorite sights...

 Middlebury & Shipshewanna

Sure did enjoy shopping at the Lolly's - upstairs and down. The boat!

One of the buildings at Das Essenhaus.

Country roads.

Found these around town. Hickory
rocking chairs - the most comfortable chair!

We stayed at the Middlebury Hampton Inn which was brand-new and really nice. It was also pretty central for getting around to different places. There was way more than you could do in a couple days which is all we had this time. We took an Amish farm tour. I thought it was going to be more of a drive through the country but it ended up being about how a dairy farm works which was fun too. (and gross)... Our guide Clarence was a total character. The day we were headed home we stopped in Nappannee. We didn't have time to take the tour @ Amish Acres but we did some shopping and spent some time at a great museum in Nappanee.  

 Nappannee

This was the first thing I saw when we pulled into town... I knew we were in the right place.

This was gorgeous. This was in the gift shop at Amish Acres.

This was the smallest of a trio. The squares are 3/8-1/2".
At the museum in Nappannee.

Really cool anniversary quilt... have often wondered if you could do something like this...

This is an antique church-fundraising quilt. The quilting on this was great.

Another great piece in the Nappannee museum.

One of the "Quilt Gardens"

What a great idea. Loved these - only saw about 6 or 7 of them...