More from Shipshewana

This is my second year attending the Shipshewana Festival. Last year I was there to teach Schoolhouse sessions, that event happens on Thursday. This year we also had a booth at the Vendor Mall in the Quilt Show.

It is a wonderful festival in an Amish town in northern Indiana. The drive there is totally relaxing as you watch the cities disappear and the corn fields roll by. Every business in town participates in the multi day event that starts on Wednesday and runs through Saturday and it also corresponds with the local Shop Hop.

This year the featured speaker was Kaye England. If you don't know Kaye, you should! She is one of the funniest quilters I know with tons of stories to share. She was a shop owner for years, but she has sold the stores to travel, teach, write and design fabrics. Kaye's personal collection of quilts were displayed in the automobile museum - sorry, I didn't have time to take photos there, but I can tell you that my husband thoroughly enjoyed his visit to see the cars!

The photo above was another of the impressive quilts in the quilt show and vendor mall. Beautiful piecing and lots and lots of quilting to show it off!

This ribbon winning quilt absolutely knocked my socks off! The applique was trapunto, the quilting was done by hand and the over all effect was absolutely beautiful. Look at all those stitches!


What made it even more impressive was the size. This photo shows that quilt hanging next to another ribbon winner.

From a distance I couldn't imagine why this Mariners compass wall hanging didn't have a ribbon on it. The colors are beautiful, the points are precise and the information indicated that it had been hand pieced. Upon closer inspection I could see that the quilting was done by machine. For some reason the quilter decided to quilt each point using a blanket stitch, making it appear that the points had been fused in place. All that handwork and no ribbon!

This Ohio Star quilt has 221 stars that measure THREE inches each! They were all set on point with three inch solid squares between them. Look at the amount of machine quilting there is in each square.

The blue border points were micro stippled and the white ones had these beautiful feathers.

I thought this large bed sized quilt was impressive! Bargello quilts have always been one of my husbands favorites and this multi directional one had him thinking that I should make one for our bed. It had me thinking that he should learn to quilt!

Why not put the Shipshewana Quilt Festival on your list of things to do in June 2012?

Shipshewana Quilt Show

Here are the photos of some of my favorite quilts from the Shipshewana Quilt Show that I promised you!

The quilts are absolutely beautiful, my photography leaves a bit to be desired. You may have to tilt your head a little this way or that way to view them, but I hope you enjoy this tiny glimpse of the show.

This tall ship masterpiece was hand appliqued and won the hearts of the judges. It is stunning in person and believe it or not, it is a block-of-the-month quilt!

Anyone looking to start a new project?


This contemporary piece was my personal favorite. It is a large quilt and when I read the description, it said that the woman that made it collected the fabrics, which were all silk, by purchasing silk shirts from thrift shops!

You have to love a person that can walk into a thrift shop and envision THIS!

I couldn't resist taking photos of these large quilts with mini blocks. Our First Friday/Saturday club was based on 4 inch blocks this year and there was a fair amount of whining and complaining from the participants. I wanted to prove that some people LOVE working small!

The quilt with the blocks on point in the border has 1/2 inch sashing. Those inner borders are made up of 1/2 inch triangles and 1 inch squares on point. I would love to own a quilt like this. I doubt that I will ever get around to making one like it, but I would like to think I might...... a girl can dream can't she?

Talk about small, these next few are really, really small!

This is an "Inchy" project. The tiny squares are each one inch square. The more colorful squares are individual works of art. The squares are stitched, embellished, beaded and have satin stitched binding and then they are appliqued to the pieced background.

The Inchy idea isn't original, there are lots of books and even Internet swap groups for inchy projects.

This quilt is really, really small..... this Lone Star quilt was created in the folded pineapple technique. That is difficult enough to do with precision, but this quilt maker took it to the extreme! Those "logs" are about 1/8 inch and the whole quilt measures 9 inches!

In the next photo you can see it hanging in the bottom right corner under some of the other quilts in the small quilt category. What I don't understand is why it didn't have a ribbon on it! - WOW!

From small to bed size. These wonderful pieced wheels are 15" blocks. It was one of the most unique scrap quilts I have ever seen. The pieced centers were made up of every fabric imaginable and they were all tied together with the backgrounds.... and why not add a hand appliqued border while you are at it?

Every show seems to have a selection of Stack and Whack or One Block Wonder quilts. This one was huge and was meticulously put together. The fabric selection was a unique color combination, the pinks and yellows seemed to glow against the red background fabric. Well done!

There were more, but it is much better to enjoy them in person.

Shipshewana Quilt Festival

I'm "working" out of town for a few days as a guest speaker in Shipshewana, Indiana. You are probably thinking "yea right, tough gig", but I really do have to work tomorrow. I'm teaching 4 sessions of Schoolhouse here at the Quilt Festival. Normally I would also have a booth for this 4 day event, and would be in the booth when I wasn't teaching and wouldn't have time to enjoy the event. That wasn't in the cards for this trip. So here I am "stuck" in a quaint Amish town filled with quilt shops and quilters on a beautiful summer day.... what is a girl to do? .....SHOP!!!

I had great fun today! It took a bit more than 6 hours to get here, but that included a stop at Checker Distributors, our wholesale suppliers warehouse to pick up a few goodies. Checker makes the Creative Grid rulers that I love and it would be a shame to drive right by their Ohio warehouse and not stop in to see what was new. They are conveniently located 1 tank of gas from home and they have a clean bathroom so I stopped by, got gas, and made a quick trip through the warehouse..... and spent a little over $500! It would have been cheaper to pee at the rest stop - but not as much fun!

It was a little after 3pm when I checked in to the Festival registration and received my packet. It included admission to the quilt show, vendor mall and shop hop passport. The quilt show was in the same building so I went right there. WOW!!! The show was wonderful! Naturally I had left my camera in the car, but I couldn't resist snapping a few photos with my phone. When I realize I had taken almost a dozen photos in just the first aisle, I decided to just enjoy the show and take the good camera when I go back tomorrow morning.

After enjoying the show I decided to do a little shop hopping. I have to say that it was great fun to be on the other side of the shop hop counter.

I headed straight for Yoder's, the Amish department store that is hosting this event. The owners are lovely people that are doing a fabulous job with the event as well as having a great store.

I snapped this photo in the middle of their fabric department (there are also shoes, food, housewares and a dozen other departments in the building). I know it is hard to see, but the crowd of people in the distance are all in line waiting to have their books autographed and a photo taken with Eleanor Burns. The place was packed and even though I have a 5000 square foot building full of fabric in Pennsylvania, I managed to find 2 pieces of rayon batik that just had to come home with me.

My next stop was a short trip away (it is within walking distance!)to Lolly's Fabrics inside the Davis Mercantile. I was lusting after their beautiful Amish made fixtures and displays when I turned the corner and look what I found! My BeJeweled Table Runner!

It is a great looking sample, as were all of the samples in the shop. This Indiana Amish community has lots of displays, and Lolly's even has another storefront in the mercantile featuring finished quilts and wall hangings. I thought they were reasonably priced, especially for hand quilting.

I still had a bit of time left before the stores closed for the evening so I stopped by Home Spun Treasures in LaGrange on the way to my hotel. It is a small shop with a limited amount of fabric, but look what was on display! - My Reversible Table Runner! I really felt good to see my patterns included in the samples of these top notch shops.

The staff at Home Spun Treasures was very excited about tomorrow's event. They are getting up very early in the morning to hang clothesline around the courthouse and display their donation of 1000 pillowcases for the pillowcase challenge! ONE THOUSAND PILLOWCASES! That is something to be proud of! I hope I have the chance to see the display before my class. I also want to stop by the quilt show again and possibly squeeze in a few more shops .... so many shops, so little time.