Some sad news.....

Some of you might have been followers of Kaye at her blog (click HERE for her blog).  She has not blogged in nearly a year because she has been coping with a very ill husband who had brain tumor surgery and then had further health problems develop after that.  I am sorry to say he suffered for a long time but his suffering is now over as he passed away today.  My heart goes out to Kaye and her family at this difficult time.  If you are a blogger who "knew" her through her blog and wish to contact her to express your sympathy, please get in touch with me and I'll help you do that.

Win some free batting!!!

Of course, I hope to be the winner, but......to enter the giveaway, I had to promise to tell all of you. So....go HERE to read about it.

The rental house....

I realized I didn't take many photos of the retreat house we rented two weeks ago...guess that's because the owners have many good shots of it online at the site from which we rented it.  This house is large.......5 regular bedrooms and 2 loft bedrooms....a front porch with rockers and an upstairs balcony......3 full bathrooms and a very nice yard with lots of seating and a fire pit that we didn't use but had intended to (just never got around to it).  THIS is the site that tells about the house for any who might be interested in it....would make a great spot for a large family vacation or for another group to do a quilters' retreat. (If you have a group that decides to rent it, tell them Pat and the gals from Delaware sent you!!! We don't get anything for a referral but at least they'd know we liked the house enough to recommend it.)  Here are a few photos I did take while there......(click to enlarge)....captions beneath each photo.

 

This was the view when pulling out of the driveway.  Many of the immediate neighbors are Amish families and an Amish lady next door had a very lovely gift shop with beautiful items she (and others) made.

 

The front porch of the house.....which we didn't use.  We were either busy sewing or shopping!!! I guess we need to stay there longer to make use of the firepit and the front porch.

 

Some Amish children walking home from school.  One of the Amish one-room schoolhouses was a few doors away from us.  I always love watching the schoolkids go by.......all carrying those lunch coolers now.  This road has a good bit of traffic, so the "lead" child wears a safety vest.  I also notice that she had the little guy carry HER lunch cooler, too!  Other years, I've not noticed any lead child doing that and I found it kind of funny to see.

Lots of projects......

Thanks to all who took the time to look at the many photos in my previous post.  It has become a fun part of the whole Amish quilt trip experience to report back to you on what was purchased and put into that "bottomless" Amish shopping bag!  lol    But...I don't want you to think all we did was shop. Actually, we crammed the shopping into a couple of very brief excursions and all were within about 15 minutes (or less) of our rental house.  Hours and hours were spent using the GO cutter and sewing.  (In fact, all of us ended up with backaches before the week was over from sitting at the kitchen table for so long....and some of us even switched out to some folding chairs that were more comfy than the kitchen chairs!  Not that we are getting old or anything, but.......)   Below are some photos of items that were made during the week.  NO photos of items that were started but not completed and there were also several of them that went home ready-to-finish.

The photos should enlarge if you click on them.  We made several rag rugs and several zipper bags that will be used as Christmas gifts.  This photo is a collection of some of what was made by all of us......in addition to the bags and rugs, there were rope hot pads, coasters, stars for a memorial quilt project being done on another blog, a small wall-hanging, placemats and runners.   Raggy squares for 3 raggy quilts were also cut on the GO and the gal who cut them has since assembled them when she returned home as well as a few more rag rugs cut but not sewn there.

The girls hard at work.....and the table is actually a little bit neater in this photo than it was at other times! 

A close up view of some of the projects seen above in the first photo.

Sherry with one of the rag rugs she made.  She also cut out two more with beautifully coordinated fabrics that will match her master bathroom/bedroom.

My rope hot pad close up.  It was my first attempt so it is a little messier than I'd like, but now that I have the hang of it, I'm sure I could get it neater if I made another one.     Oh....for those who asked about the wine in the last post and were not able to make out the name,  it was called Quilters' Delight and is made and marketed only in PA.  There was no way a group of quilters could walk out of the winery and NOT buy some of it with a name like that!!!

My bottomless Amish shopping bag.....

Those of you who have followed my blog for a couple of years know that I have this wonderful Amish-made shopping bag that I take on my annual quilting trip.  It always fits so many terrific goodies inside it....and my blog readers always look forward to seeing what it brings home each year. SO.....here is that post.  It is very photo-intensive (with each photo having a caption under it...and I think they might be clickable to view larger).  IF Blogger doesn't cooperate and let me post them all in one post (or won't let me get a caption underneath each photo if I have too many), I will have to split this up into two posts, but...let's see what happens.

This is a little jointed bear...made by a gal up in the Amish area who makes purses and other things to sell in shops.  This little guy needs a name, so all suggestions are welcomed.  He is sitting on the edge of the shopping bag, as you can see.

Oh, look...that nameless little bear popped into a second photo...sitting with some fabric and an interesting little book about Amish one-room schools.  One of the fabrics is a very nice polka-dotted 108" wide backing fabric that was only $10.95 a yard...a real buy!

I enjoy the nice Amish calendars I find in PA each year.  The photos for each month are very peaceful and I even save the calendars at the end of the year so I can continue to enjoy the photos.

Some batik fabrics....purchased to make a zippered bag which I'm hoping to make in the next day or two.

Oh, look...it's more fabric and some hand-quilting thread.

Last year I purchased a nice, wooden handmade 48" wide quilt hanger at one of the Amish shops.  I got a small one this  year. It is 14" wide and I can easily make some miniature wall-hangings for it...maybe one for each season or holiday?

What a surprise to find more fabric popped out of that shopping bag!

Here we have two cinnamon-scented mats (made by the Amish).  One is for me and one is a gift.  The little sign is a gift, too, for a young couple I know.

I didn't want to open the box and unwrap this as I might not get it wrapped properly again.  It is a gift for a friend who loves dachshunds. She and her husband are very kind and let us stay at their house during the Hurricane in August and when I saw this (it's a bank from Pottery Barn), I had to buy it for her, so....it squeezed itself into the shopping bag, too.

This is another gift for someone for Christmas...from the Pottery Barn outlet, also.  It is a 30-hour birch bark candle and a nice wooden pedestal.

 This looks very strange but it's the most fun piece of jewelry I've seen and I bought it for ME.  It's a "twistlet".  You can wear it many ways as a necklace and also use it as a bracelet or a scarf holder.  I think I will do an entire post on it sometime soon.  I wore it today as a necklace and got a lot of positive comments.  You can bend and twist it every which way...it's almost as much fun as playing with a toy!

This is an electric warmer that melts wax, scented tarts.  It has a pineapple design on it which you can see if you look closely.  My husband has already enjoyed using this in our house.

 Speaking of my husband, he loves the many wonderful Amish-made food items available at the Canning Company and from Kitchen Kettle Village near the house we rented...so I brought several items home for him.......relishes, pickles, jellies, salad dressings, brandied cherries...and I know I also bought a scone mix, but I somehow forgot to put that in view of the camera.

And here we have a large head of cabbage grown on an Amish farm (already cut up for cole slaw today) as well as some super-delicious raisin bread baked at the Bird-in-Hand Bakery and a nice hunk of homemade cheese purchased at one of the Amish farms.  I also got some homemade root beer there but drank it before I thought to take a picture of the bottle.  It is excellent!

 Gee..what is this that came out of the bag?  It looks to be a bottle of wine, but....is it empty?  Hmmmm....how did that happen?  Be sure to look at the name of the wine on the label and it might give you a clue about who emptied the bottle!

Now..this looks crazy but there is a story behind it.  I happen to like a lunch meat called Lebanon Bologna.  I know...I know...the stuff isn't good for me.  I rarely buy it here as the price is more than I wish to pay but one of the Amish markets (one that was seen in the movie Witness....Zimmerman's in the town of Intercourse) had it on sale for the amazing price of $2.99 a pound, so I bought two packages.  One will go in the freezer and one I have already been enjoying.     NOW......didn't that Amish shopping bag do a great job again this year?   Don't think all we did was shop, though.  We did a good bit of sewing and I'll do some posts soon to show you some more of our week of fun in PA.   Thanks for sticking with me for this long, photo-intensive post.  My blog readers are the best!  (OH...and please remember to suggest a name for my cute little bear!)

Soon.....very soon........

I know that some of you are anxiously awaiting my now-annual post showing what I managed to stuff into that Amish shopping bag during my 5-day quilting trip to the area of Lancaster, PA.   Well....in another day or two, I'll have that post ready.  The shopping bag did a marvelous job this year....just wait until you see how much it carried home for me!   (Be ready for a photo-intensive post!!!)   For now, this is just a photo of one of the Christmas gift quilts I made (all cut with my GO cutter) hanging on the front porch of the rental house.  I had it in mind to take some photos there of quilts on the fence, but the type of fence that was there didn't really lend itself to that......so we improvised.  Thanks, Kathy, for helping me with my quilt pictures!

One finished project.....

We are having a wonderful time on our quilting trip......very productive in both sewing AND shopping.  Here is one of my finishes....a small wall-hanging that will go on the wall in my kitchen when I return home.  Many more photos coming in a couple of days!