Fabric Shopping in Amish Country

I have been enjoying my stay in Northern Virginia.  I arrived late Thursday night.  Friday, I spent the day settling in while Willa and David were at work.  I took some time to cut fabric for the doll quilt for the April swap.  Saturday morning, Willa and I went to a couple of fabric shops where I found some beautiful batiks on sale, and a piece of peacock fabric I fell in love with.  Sunday, we had a brunch with many old friends, and that was great fun.  Monday morning, we set off for Pennsylvania and Amish country to shop for fabric.

We headed around Washington, DC on the beltway, then headed north through Maryland until we reached Pennsylvania.  Our first destination was The Old Country Store in Intercourse, PA.  We stopped here at the visitors center along the interstate.

The Old Country Store is a wonderful place where they have a quilt museum upstairs, a gift shop with locally made handcrafts, quilts, and food, and a fantastic fabric store.  Willa and I found wonderful fabrics at extremely reasonable prices.  I found beautiful Kona solids at less than $7.00 per yard. 

I already have plans for all of them.  I also found some homespuns for the house quilt that I am starting soon, at very low prices.

If you buy 10 fat quarters, they are only $1.99 each.  I found some great batiks and other things.  I should have picked up some more.

The Old Country Store also as an online store here.

After lunch at Stolfus Meats and Deli, we headed back, planning on stopping at a couple of other fabric shops along the way.

I believe this was called Bird In Hand Fabrics and Notions.  This was more of a local shop carrying fabric and notions for making plain clothes, as well as quilting fabric.  I have never seen so many different bolts of black fabric.  The prices here were also very reasonable.  As you can see on the sign, many were on sale for $4 - $5 per yard.  I bought a small piece of fabric and a quilting stencil here.

I didn't get a photo of the last place we stopped, Log Cabin Quilts in Bird In Hand.  Here, I found the black and yellow fabric I needed for this months Stash Bee Hive 1 block. 

Here are some of the odd pieces of fabric I picked up at the different shops that are for various projects.

Some were on sale, some I just fell in love with.  A couple are for bees and other WIPs.

All in all, we had a wonderful and successful day.  We spend way less than we expected, and came home with more fabric than we thought we would.  The drive was beautiful, and we didn't run into any of the bad traffic that I expected in the DC area.

Today, I am going to work on sewing my April doll quilt.  I will leave you with this photo of a farm field in Bird In Hand.  Joyful quilting, everyone.