Sentimental Stitches

Yes, I know I'm late in giving you the final Shipshewana installment but it's been a wild couple of days. I started losing my voice Saturday morning and by evening I couldn't talk at all. It was terrible. My final night and I'm without a voice. I did go shopping during the day. Saturday is always 'food' day.

My first stop was to E&S Sales. It's the Amish version of a bulk food warehouse like Sam's Club only better. You can buy homemade noodles, bulk spices, pie mixes and just about anything else you can think of. For me it was some great toothpicks that are perfect for applique, AA batteries for $.15 each, orange spice tea and a few other things.

Then I was off to Lolly's to fish the fat quarter boat. I think I did pretty good for myself.

We had our block swap and most of us are now ready to put those beautiful little blocks together into a good size quilt.

If you want to see a ghost town stop in Shipshewana on a Sunday. This is a picture of the main highway going through town. Not a car in sight in either direction as far as you can see.

I took advantage of the situation to take a few pictures. The Yoder Dutch Store is across from the Farmstead Inn. It's a huge barn filled with shops on two levels. I always find something cute for the house there.
Behind them is part of the seemingly endless flat land that makes up the Flea Market. It starts Tuesday and will continue every Tuesday and Wednesday through October. I used to be able to walk the entire thing but no longer. My little feet just can't take it.

Here's one last look at Yoder's Department Store and the front porch at Lolly's Fabrics.

It's always so hard packing up and saying goodbye to friends on Sunday morning. It will be 7 months before we are back together again. Thank goodness for email. I've concluded there aren't words to fully describe Shipshewana and what it means to some of us. It's so much more than the great food, beautiful fabric and scenery. I think it's a way of life we all long for and are delighted to be part of even if only for a few days. It reminds us to take pause and give thanks for our blessings which are many and have patience in our trials. We are reminded of the value of friendships that cross the miles and the joy of making new friends.

There's no rest for me. I still don't feel the best and need to drive up to Traverse City tomorrow. The Midget Block for this week has been posted but it will might be the end of the week before I get all the monthly blocks posted. Not too worry, I'll send out the usual reminder email.

It's well after midnight and I'm just beginning this post. I'm pretty tired so it might be short and sweet. The cool, damp, dreary weather is hanging on. I changed some of the settings on my camera and I'm not too happy with the results so I'll try something different tomorrow. I also noticed that today was the day for power lines. They seemed to pop up in several shots. Drat!

The Farmstead Inn is getting to be a large collection of buildings when viewed from across the street. An Amish buggy was going past when I took the picture. That's as close as you'll get to an Amish photo from me. Because of their religion, the Amish do not pose for photographs. I spent a lot of time with Amish families in my twenties and remember Oma's advise on taking pictures. If it's part of a scenic picture it's okay but we never take photos or have our pictures taken. Friday is a big shopping day for the Amish in Shipshewana. There were several buggies tied up next to Yoder's Department Store.

Yesterday I said there would be pictures of my stitching today. The best I can do today is show you what my swap blocks look like. I made 16 blocks since I arrived and we're swapping tomorrow. I'll post a picture of all the different ones tomorrow night and hopefully I'll have made progress on a few other blocks too. I'm working on some Midgets.

These are the two main streets in town. The photo on the left is looking down Harrison St. and the one on the right is of Morton St. Both streets are lined with unique shops that offer so many tempting things.

I didn't have the best view in the room for Show & Tell tonight but it was better than our friend Caroline. She couldn't attend the retreat this Spring so Kim was kind enough to hold up her laptop with a web cam so Caroline could watch from Belgium. Pretty cool huh?
I spent two days on one side of our room and now I've moved to the other side for a different view. See that little coffee mug in the lower left corner? That's my stitching station until Sunday. Tomorrow the machine will be humming. I'm off to bed.