Amish Country

Wow, what a busy weekend (seems like I say that a lot lately)! I left Friday for a small town in Upstate NY to visit my parents. They live in a town with a large and growing Amish population. This weekend the old general store re-opened. The historical society refurbished the inside and it is selling Amish and hand-made goods. It was truly lovely with handmade quilts, baskets, furniture, etc. Plus, I scored some old fashioned lemon drops, Yummy. They are so hard to find.

Saturday, my Mom & I spent the morning teaching my grandmother and Great Aunt how to do the quilting stack & whack technique. We worked on 20 blocks to create a queen size quilt to raffle at next year's family reunion. We cut and pieced the majority of the blocks - we just have to pick out some accent fabrics to finish the rest - then it can go to be machine quilted. It was great fun and it is interesting and heart warming to see all the generations working together on a project. It also gave me a good chunk of time to work on the felted bag for my husband's volleyball team. I cut most of the pieces - so I was able to knit while my grandmother and Aunt did most of the piecing and Mom ironed. Pretty good progress from Friday to now.... I only have about 15 rows to go - then I just have to do the I-cord and felt...

When we finished on with the quilt "class" - we visited a new fabric and yarn shop (my two favorite combos!!) in a nearby town. They had refurbished another general store and stocked it with beautiful natural fibers and yarns. Not a huge selection as they are just getting started, but some truly lovely yarn. I bought two gorgeous skeins of Baby Alpaca for a sleeveless shell and some secret yarn for my secret swap pal... shhh.

Also a few picks that I was going to post on Friday, but because a storm my Dad's Internet was not working too well....

Baby cardigan all done -- just needs to be blocked to tame some of the rolling.

Shrug progress: