When I took mom and my aunt to Nappanee, I thought it would be nice to find a quilt shop to visit. There is a nice one in Shipshewana called Lolly’s. It is in a huge building and has tons of fabric. You can spend hours in there. At least, I can! LOL

I looked on the Internet and by golly there was a quilt shop in Nappanee. It was called Mitchell’s and I had directions in hand. The first part of the route was plain as day and easy to follow but the county roads had me nervous. It seemed like we would end up in Ohio before we found the place. We finally drove past an older home that had a tiny sign in the yard. Eureka! We pulled in and wondered what we were getting into. An Amish lady was driving her “riding mower” as she tidied up her yard. Another Amish lady came out of the house and welcomed us. She opened up a small building for us to enter. Holy Smokes! This place was stuffed with quilts. They were all handmade and well done. The stitches on each quilt were tiny, (we quilters notice that). There were log cabins and nine patch quilts amongst stuffed bears and raggedy Ann dolls. It was a very nice quilt shop with expensive prices to match. The quilts were marked $600-$900. My mom and aunt make quilts of the same caliber and kept going on about the prices. I keep telling them how much their quilts are worth but it doesn’t soak in.

There was a small corner of fabric and so mom and my aunt purchased some as a keepsake. We enjoyed the rhetoric with our hostess. She pulled out a beautiful crazy patch quilt that had been made specifically for her family. She said there are eleven similar ones as there are eleven children in the family and they each have one. The quilts are made with fabric from the man of the household’s suits. She told us the history behind each piece of fabric and then described why each bit of embroidery on that particular patch was chosen. A sprig of wheat. A bit of clover with purple blooms. Something unique was finely embroidered on each patch. It was beautiful. No pictures were allowed to be taken inside the building. Darn, I would love to have shown you that quilt. We lifted quilt upon quilt and admired each one. There were table runners hanging that were priced out of my budget. One quilt was elegantly displayed on a hitching yoke from a wagon. It was a cool place and I am glad we finally found it.