An Awesome Saturday

.It was a day full of driving and shopping with my two buddies, Bailey and my hubby. We headed out to Lancaster County with our own agendas. First stop was Beikers for lots of juices peaches to make peach jam. 

There was an adorable Amish girl and her mother sitting outside selling peach smoothies. 

I couldn't resist and I realized that I guzzled down half my smoothie before I thought to take a photo! The girls mother was happy for me to snap a photo of my smoothie maker! (Usually they are camera shy. )

The next stop was our favorite produce stand. 

Bushels of Roma tomatoes for $4 each. Watermelons for $2. Heirloom tomatoes for 50c each. All on the honor system. Most of you know that I have turned the kitchen over to Don. Lots of work!

The next stop was for me. 

Hinkletown Sewing Center. It's Bernina heaven. 

And if you think the Amish are shy and retiring, you haven't met Irv Zimmerman and his daughter Irma. They have a twinkle in their eye and a lilt to their voice and can upsell anything. I had done my research and had a good idea of what I wanted. Besides a great price and a good trade-in price, I went home with this beauty. 

There was still daylight, so we headed to Lititz. Patti Strine, Program Chair for a guild I had visited last week told me about a fabric store that I had never visited. In Lancaster? Really? How could that be? I thought I knew them all. Of course I had to check it out. 

Weavers Dry Goods. Don't let this view fool you. Once you enter, the shop goes on and on with some very good prices. The fabric was well organized and I found lots of bright, clear fabrics. I'll be heading back. Among my purchases was this great matchbox car fabric. 

I used it for my first sewing project with my new machine to make pillowcases for ConKerr cancer, now called A Case For Smiles. It's my quilt guilds community outreach project for the month of September. Most people choose pretty fabric suitable for girls. Of course, being the mother of boys, I had to choose fabric suitable for boys. 

A wonderful day, capped off with an outdoor lunch at a dog friendly restaurant in downtown Lititz with a little more shopping - just for fun. 

Bitty Kinnas

My friend,Nancy, was spending a day with her husband in Lancaster, PA, back in May.  She stopped in a newly opened quilt shop, met the warm and welcoming owner and was brave enough to mention that her friend (that would be me) was coming out with a new book.  The owner thought that maybe we could do a book signing during the Lancaster quilt show.

Finally, Nancy and I did a road trip to Lancaster to visit Bitty Kinna's, right in the heart of the town of Intercourse on Philadelphia Pike.  It is an exciting location with many fabric stores and finished quilts for sale also.  It is right in the heart of Amish country and you can often see the Amish clip clopping down the street in a buggy.

The shop is bright and packed full of a variety of fabric.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gina, the owner had some pretty cool tools too.  

I had 2 favorites.  There was the Bohin marking pencil.  

It comes with white lead, which is great for marking your quilting lines on a dark fabric. 

There is also a gray lead that is available that looks just like pencil.  That's for marking dark fabric.   The darker markings can be removed with the eraser.  The lighter one is more like chalk.  Gina was actually marking a customer's quilt with this tool using her templates for an Amish woman to quilt.

The other cool gadget she had was a magnetic pin holder.  I had never seen one like this before.

The bottom is weighted and the pins like to hang around the rim.

Bitty Kinna has its own parking lot behind the store, which makes it very convenient, because this town can get very busy.  In the back of her parking lot there is a cozy looking building.

Gina plans on holding classes in this building.  It has its own powder room and will be outfitted with cutting tables and sewing tables.  The most exciting news is that anyone will be able to rent it for sew-ins for $5/day per person.  So that means if you have a group of friends that would like to spend the day quilting , here's a place for you to go.  One day, heck, you could go for 5 days at that price.  And I'm sure Gina would be happy to let you know where you could stay and eat.  I bet she wouldn't mind if you frequented the shop for anything you may have forgotten.  (wink, wink).

So the good news for me is that we are going to do a book signing during the Lancaster Quilt Show and a Fiesta Quilt workshop is in the works.  Thank you Nancy.  And when you make it to the shop, ask Gina how she came up with the shop's name.

AQS Lancaster Quilt Show Review

Oh I had such high hopes. AQS was putting on a quilt show in Lancaster, PA, our backyard quilting capitol and home to the Amish. AQS. This is the Paducah AQS. In Lancaster - about 1 hour from my house. This was going to be a high quality, exciting quilt show filled with eye candy and quilts to drool over. The previous quilt show held in Lancaster at The Host Farms, Quilters Heritage Celebration, said their good byes in 2009. It had indeed grown a bit tired. It was time for them to leave. AQS stepped in to fill the void.

The facility was beautiful. The new Lancaster Convention Center is attached to a brand new Marriott. The show was on 3 floors and also at an off-site location. There was a free shuttle bus provided to get to this other location that was a little over a mile away.

I so want to say nice things, but I think the most positive things I have to say I just said. Oh, one more - there were LOTS of very clean women's restrooms.

I was truly underwhelmed. First, the lighting was horrible. Many of the quilts were so poorly lit, that you couldn't tell if they were raw edge appliqued or appliqued with the edges turned over. And did you want to know if those quilts were machine or hand quilted? Forget it!

The quality of the quilts also left something to be desired. There were a few wonderful quilts, but many that you wondered how they were accepted into such a prestigious show. The Best of Show quilt was a Mariner's Compass by Linda Roy. It was exquisitely pieced and quilted with metallic thread (and we all know how difficult that can be), but was it innovative or unusual at all? I didn't think so.

The one trend that I dfid notice was the use of unusual edge treatments and borders. In Double Damask, Liz Jones used small scallops and striped piping. It gave a great effect.

And there was one with "tabs", created by Janet Shore.

Karen Kay Buckley's border had these beautiful spirals in the border created from appliqued leaves.

Esterita Austin also had a humorous quilt called "Incommunicado" with an unusual border and a very cool depiction of transparent wine glasses. Sorry that I don't have a photo of it. By the time I saw it, I had given up and put my camera away. My favorite quilt was one by Betty Busby, called Cherry Trees. The reflection of the trees in the water was done with paint and was just wonderful. It was embellished so tastefully with beads.

Many of the quilts have been around, for a while. Some I may have seen at least 4 years ago. The vendors were interspersed with the quilts. It made it a little hard to immerse yourself in the quilt entries. Once you went to the 2nd and 3rd floors, there must have been more vendors than quilts. I have to say there was nothing that interested or excited me to try something new. Most of the vendors seemed to focus on country type fabric and patterns.

I am getting depressed even writing this blog post. I just hope that not a lot of people knew about the show, there will be more publicity and that next year will be better.

Recharging In Lancaster County, PA

Lancaster County , home to a large population of Amish, is a little more than an hour's drive from my home. I love to drive out there for the scenery, the Amish and THE FABRIC. All 3 of these are important to help me recharge spiritually and creatively.

When you drive out Rte 30W from my home, you come down a long hill and you see a magnificent view of an Amish farm and their patchwork fields. You know you have arrived. It is my friend Nancy's favorite view of all. If you leave Rte 30, which you must, and drive around the back roads, you will see acres and acres of farms, dotted with barns, covered bridges, one room schoolhouses, horse drawn farming equipment and Amish.

If you are unfamiliar with the Amish, they are an amazing people who have chosen to eschew modern conveniences. (I know there has been a lot of bad press latley about the puppy mills. Most of them are not this cruel.) They don't use electricity or drive cars. Most of them make their living from farming. They lead a simple life that includes only an 8th grade education.

I have a very good friend, Ann Davis, who loves the Amish countryside even more than me. She loves Lancaster County so much that she bought a house there to use as a vacation house. (She calls it the Faux Farm.) Ann befriended an Amish family and introduced me to Sadie. Sadie has become my friend. She is in her 70's and we have spent hours sitting, talking and quilting at her quilt frame. (I think she must take out all of my stitches after I leave.) She has a ton of kids and even more grandchildren. The funny thing about Sadie is that she does have a phone (mainly to check her pacemaker). It cracked me up one day when she telephoned my house. "My Amish friend is on the phone!". She will also jump in my car or Ann's car for errands, visiting or just to go get an ice cream. She reads the newspaper and is ready to converse about world events.

Ann is an amateur photographer and gave me permission to share some of her photos. She has a wonderful eye for composing. (Don't think I haven;t thought about using a photo of hers for a quilt.)They really make you feel like you are there. If you want to see more of her artistry , check out her blog: http://fauxfarmgirl.com/.

So the 3rd thing that recharges my battery on this road trip is a visit to the fabric stores. Here is my opinion (and shared by some of my quilting buddies) of the best.

• My favorite is Hayloft Fabrics (http://hayloftfabrics.com/). It is located in Morgantown, right off of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It is located upstairs from Martins', a grocery store. They have LOTS of current fabric, batiks, batting, and novelties. Their prices are discounted, plus they will give you a guild discount if you have a membership card. PLUS, when you are done shopping for fabric, you can go downstairs and treat your family to some baked goods like whoopie pies, sticky buns or shoefly pie.


• If you get back on the turnpike heading west, take the next exit west. Close to the exit in Denver is Sauder's. It is located in the basement of a house. The prices are great and they even have remnants and fabric at $1.79/yd. They have lots of batiks in the $6 price range. They also have a section of bulk food at really great prices - flour, pasta, cereal, candy, snacks and spices.


• Also in Denver, but quite a ways away, is Burkholders (http://www.burkholdersfabric.com/). I like 2 things about this fabric store. It is a great place to find the "basic" type of fabric - like fossil fern. They have these fabrics in almost every single color there is. The prices are discounted and again they give a guild discount (12%).

If you head to Intercourse on Rte 340, you will find a little village with tons of shops. There's a heritage center with an informative movie about the Amish. There is also a great restaurant called Kling House. And a few quilt shops:

• Zooks has lots of current fabric at discounted prices. They have some of a lot. But around back is a hitching post for the Amish buggies. Watch where you walk.
  
• The Old Country Store (http://theoldcountrystore.com/) has fabric, but the reason to enter the store is to see all of the locally made crafts including lots of finished beautiful quilts. Upstairs is the Peoples Place Quilt Museum (http://ppquiltmuseum.com/) with changing quilt exhibits - free admission.

If you still have some time and energy, keep driving west into the city of Lancaster. The Lancaster Quilt & Textile Museum (http://quiltandtextilemusuem.com/) has a large collection of Amish quilts and it is located right near an indoor farmer's market. (The origin of this museum was to house the Esprit quilt collection.)