12 Quilts of Christmas Winners and a Weekend Girls’ Trip to Ohio Amish Country

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thanksgiving!

So, what are you doing for Thanksgiving? Originally, I was planning to have ham because I’m not wild about turkey. Then, wouldn’t you know it, but my father brought home a turkey — change of plans. Huh. I am hoping to put the turkey in the crock pot, which is so much easier and a lot moister, in my opinion. Hopefully the turkey will actually fit into the crock pot…..fingers crossed!

In the meantime, I want to take a moment and congratulate our 2 winners from the recent blog drawing for 2 sets of our brand new beautiful 12 Quilts of Christmas Rose Card pattern collection.

12 Quilts of Christmas Winners

Throw the confetti! Cue the band!!

Special Congratulations goes out to Heidi from CT and Barb from NE.

Thanks to everyone who commented on your favorite holiday traditions. I so enjoyed reading them and wish I could send each of you a prize……… If you didn’t win, though, it’s not too late to grab your own set of the 12 Quilts of Christmas patterns HERE.

PSST! I’ve been itching to share my recent trip after getting home from Houston earlier this month, but I had already planned to wrap up Quilt Market and Festival for last Thursday’s post, so my trip to Ohio had to wait until this week.

Ohio Amish Country

A few days after I got home from Houston, I asked my Mom what she wanted for her birthday (which at the time was about a week and a half away). She thought about it for a moment and then answered, “I’d like to get away.”

It wasn’t quite the answer I thought I was going to get, but as I knew she hadn’t gone on any vacations since before the Pandemic, I decided to talk to my sister and see if we could figure something out together. So I told my mom, “Okay, let me see what I can do.”

Later that night, I messaged my sister and asked her what she thought about taking our mom on a mini vacation the weekend of her birthday (her birthday was going to be on a Saturday). My sister, Tracy, surprised me and jumped right onboard with my idea.

We tossed around a few places that wouldn’t be too far for us to go for a weekend. I suggested Findley Lake, NY or maybe Berlin, OH. Within a few days, my sister sent me a hotel reservation and our trip was on! For real!

We were off to Millersburg and Berlin Ohio, in the middle of Ohio’s Amish country in five days. Woohoo! I’d been there once on a bus trip and had loved the area, Tracy had driven through there a few times but had never really spent any time there and our Mom had never been there.

We left late Friday afternoon, as my sister had to work. Mom rode shot gun and I was the puppy wrangler in the backseat.

Oh?!? Didn’t I mention it??? We took my pup, Bailly, along on our girls’ week end! It was a three hour or so drive until we got to Millersburg to check into our hotel, the Holiday Inn Express, which was pet friendly. Bailly did very well, considering she usually gets anxious on car rides, even though she really loves to go places. She’s a Shih Tzu — she doesn’t have to make sense.

The next day, Saturday, we were off to explore Berlin, which was only about 6 miles from Millersburg. Our first stop was a coffee shop for my sister as she needed to get her coffee drink to function, LOL!

There was a really cute kids’ metal truck outside the coffee shop. While Tracy went in to get her coffee I.V., I took Bailly for a little walk and we went to check out that little red truck. Anyone that knows me, is probably shaking their heads about now because they know how much I like red trucks.

Then I had the brilliant idea to take a photo of Bailly in the truck. Great idea, but it didn’t work well because she was just too little. Sweet little dear — when you weigh a whopping 12 pounds, everything is pretty much too big for you. So I posed with her and my sister snapped the photo.

After my sister was caffeinated enough, we headed to a couple big buildings with signs that read “Antiques Mall” and “Craft Mall”. Goody, goody. I hope they didn’t have a problem with small little furry girls in shopping carts……

What a shock when we got over to the buildings and there wasn’t a soul there+. We drove around, looking a for another entrance, but both buildings looked abandoned. So, we headed to a cute shop across the road called the Plaid Sheep Company. We figured it was some kind of gift shop, maybe with crafts, and I was hoping perhaps they’d have some wool yarns as my sister did a little knitting now and then.

But guess what????? It was a QUILT SHOP!!!! I sure was surprised as I wasn’t planning to go to any quilt shops (although there are quite a few in the area) because it was my Mom’s weekend and I expected we’d be busy going to antique shops, gift shops, and maybe some second hand shops, too.

Another wonderful surprise was that just as soon as I walked into the shop (about the same time I realized we’d walked into a quilt shop), I spied antique quilt blocks. Yippee! I snapped those blocks up as fast as I could. By then I imagine Mom and Tracy were rolling their eyes at me.

Plaid Sheep Company was a homey delightful shop with loads of finished samples and corresponding patterns, lots of kits, wool fabrics, cotton fabrics, and precuts. There were fun gifty items that kept my Mom occupied. I passed Bailly off to my sister before I dove right in (the shop welcomed my little lady). What fun!

I really enjoyed all of the project samples that each had a number which directed you to a column of patterns where you could find the pattern for the sample. Easy piezy! I was admiring some lovely bags towards the back of the shop and when I turned around the corner of the display, I couldn’t help but stop and stare!

There right in front of me was a nice neat row of 8 Villa Rosa table runner patterns! Hah! My sister and Bailly came around the shelf after me and asked me what I was “cackling” about. All I could do was point. She burst out laughing too and said she was going to go tell the person up at the register that I was with Villa Rosa. Fun, exciting, and embarrassing all at once. LOL!

I finished up my looking and shopping, checked out, and we headed on our way to see what other mischief the four of us could get up to……

After visiting a couple antique shops and stopping by the Guggisberg Cheese Chalet — home of the original Baby Swiss Cheese (Bailly and I stayed in the car while Tracy and Mom went into the cheese shop, but I popped in after they came back to the car).

Earlier in the day, Bailly had discovered how much fun the back window was, especially for people watching. At the Cheese Shop, there was a group of young women who were walking by and they saw Bailly in the window. One of the girls asked the others if they thought the dog was real and then Bailly moved and scared them! Hah! Silly Bailly.

Then we headed back to the hotel to figure out where to eat for Mom’s birthday dinner. I had volunteered to stay in the room with Bailly so Mom and Tracy could go to a nice Amish restaurant and they could just bring me something back. But Mom would have nothing to do with that! She wanted to eat dinner with all her girls, so Tracy and I made a food run down to the Millersburg Hotel and Tavern to grab steaks and seafood. We ended up eating dinner in the dining area of the hotel. Together. That evening, we just hung out in our room and laughed and talked. Bailly was exhausted and she napped. It was a really special day.

On Sunday, after we’d checked out of the hotel, we spent some time exploring Millersburg and found this amazing antique shop in downtown Millersburg, Village Antique Emporium. We were happily surprised to fnd it open on Sunday. It was three stories of antiques and collectibles! OH MY!

Talk about crazy — Tracy and Mom even found this interesting Talon display in the shop.

Which was really quite bizarre as our hometown of Meadville, PA is where the “hookless fastener” was invented and home to the Talon Zipper Company. How strange to travel into another state and find collectibles from your own hometown…….

Then, it was time to head back home. Back to good ol’ Meadville.

What a really fun adventure — a true girl’s weekend, something we’d never done before. I don’t know why. We are already planning to go back to Millersburg and Berlin in the spring and want to spend an extra day there so we can get into even more trouble together.

Well, that’s it for me this week. Save me a piece of pumpkin pie — just make sure it has lots and lots of whipped topping!

Until next week —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @ VRD