Our little 2 day side trip to Lancaster County was great. If you have never had the opportunity to go to this part of Pennsylvania try to sometime. Quilters beware – you will spend at least a little bit of money and will need to have your self-control in place LOL
The countryside is beautiful and takes you back to years gone by when you see the Amish and Mennonite people doing their farm work the old fashioned way. I always thought it was the men only doing the outside work and the women tending the house and gardens ect., but we saw different here – look at that 
woman keeping control of these 3 massive horses! The strength she must have in her arms – way beyond my skinny arms 
On the streets you see the little black buggy’s with a horse providing the 
transportation for the family. They go down the main drags and follow the rules of traffic like everyone else. Drive slowly – do not startle the horses! It is really interesting watching the farmers do their work and the buggy’s go by in traffic – sometimes it is women driving the buggy and sometimes men – sometimes teenagers. The Mennonites use more modern conveniences but dress in an old fashioned way. We had stopped to get some lunch in the town of Intercourse and looking out the window we saw a teenage girl dressed in the old fashion way talking on a cell phone while eating her lunch – the combination looked strange to say the least.
While in Intercourse I had to stop at the Old Country Store – my favorite in this area -
always has been even though there are others of course in the area. I think a lot of it is just plain atmosphere for me. I love the look of the place and the isles and isles of fabric. I have a hard time deciding what fabric to buy if I do not have a project in mind – so even though my eyes lite up at seeing all the fabric I normally look at all the bolts of fabric but then buy fat quarters not yardage as it tends to sit on my shelves unused where as I always use up my fat quarters. Mike caught me without me knowing he was taking pictures of me gazing at all the fabric
The store had hundreds of fat quarter bundles waiting for people like me to buy in all kinds of bright colors, prints & pastels. Here are displays of some of the fabric bundles.
This last photo is from a display in a different store - I think it was at the store that was selling hand quilts only and very nice ones at that. People in this area have very distinct feeling on what good quilts are. This means hand pieced if possible and hand quilted. I talked to 3 different women working in this store and all had the same opinion – they sell only hand quilting and they look each quilt over with a fine tooth comb before accepting it for consignment.
All of the stores in the area that I looked at sold only hand quilted quilts. In one shop I had an interesting and entertaining conversation with a Mennonite lady that was working in the shop. Once she realized I was a hand quilter and hand piecer she was very vocal on what she termed “piecers vs. real quilters”. We talked about quilt guilds and she could not believe that a good percentage of people in quilt guilds do not actually “quilt” but send their quilts out to be machine quilted. (this may be different on where you live, where I live handquilters are in the minority) I got the very distinct impression that to belong to a quilt guild in this area you better be a quilter from the very first stitch of your top to the last stitch you take in your binding
(I do not mean to start an argument among quilters about hand quilting versus machine quilting or hand piecing versus machine piecing or even a discussion about “piecers” versus “quilters”. I am just sharing topics and opinions discussed in this area with quilters from this county. Keep in mind that people in this area of Pennsylvania are traditionalists and many do things the old fashioned way and enjoy doing it that way as I do with my quilting.)
As always click on photo’s to enlarge.
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