Friday, October 06, 2006


Today I drove to Shipshewana, Indiana, in the heart of northern Indiana's Amish country. Shipshewana is just a small town, but like many other Amish areas, it has become a bit touristy full of shops selling made-in-China tschotskes (sp?) But its main attraction for me and other quilters are the wonderful quilt shops. The first is Yoder's Department Store. It really is a department store, selling all sorts of clothes, hardwarde, and other products geared to a rural and largely Amish and Mennonite customer base, but it has a wonderful selection of quilt fabrics. As you can see it was a busy morning there.




Some fabrics:


Then I went on to Lolly's in the Davis Mercentile Building. This building was completely destroyed by fire about a year and a half ago, but is better than ever. Lolly's has even more fabric than Yoder's and a large selection of finished quilts. They are locally made, and handquilted by the Amish women in the area. Lolly's looks a bit "matchy-matchy" for my taste, but the array of colors in wonderful, and as you can see, not everyone has fallen for the large pieces type of quilt.




This quilt is of course the kind you would expect to see. It's being raffled to aid a local organization.


This hand dyed over-dyed wool is something I haven't seen before. The colors are luscious.

And a final word from Amish country:

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL! Great photo finish to a great post! The quilts are beautiful, as is the weather. Looks like a perfect autumn day. Thanks for taking us along with you.

Jane Ann said...

Thanks for such cheery cyber visit! But what did you buy?

Anonymous said...

I am so loving those blue & white batiks - ever since that ever so simple quilt was on the cover of a magazine last summer... (I liked the whole white washed look of the room. - I guess that is why I am leaving & loving my purple room... The dichotomy of my mind.)

Anonymous said...

Beautiful everything. I wish I could have been there. Reminds me of my days in Chic. I am still in shock over the Amish attack, though. Could you feel the reverberations at all?

Granny Fran said...

Did you bring home any of that free manure? I'd love to have a load of that for my compost pile. I really enjoy getting to vicariously share everyone's travels.

Deb Hardman said...

We camped in Shipshe one summer. It was great. Fireflies & croaking frogs at night, & walking all over Shipshe all day, for 3 days. What a fun place. Our tent ended up in a cornfield when a thunder storm blew in while we were in town. & one early morning it rained so hard I had to open up the umbrella inside the tent to prevent the rain from pouring on our heads. We layed there laughing at how silly we were.

allie aller said...

Loved the tour, thanks!
Seeing those quilts makes me feel that fundamentally all is right in the world, even if there are a few crazies causing trouble....