Pennsylvania Road Trip

I'm back as promised to tell you all about the grand adventure I took last weekend.  First some back story.  My peep, Linda has wanted to visit the Penn Dry Goods Market for several years now and for one reason or another it never panned out.  This year luck would have it that my calendar was clear so we started making plans!

We left out on Thursday with a couple "friends" in tow. Yep, Senior Frog and his new buddy, Penelope "Penny" Skunk came along for the ride.  That frog is one well traveled dude.  We got into the hotel early evening then set out to find some dinner.  After dinner we went to scope out where we were going the next morning for our first lecture on "A Morass of Berlin Wool Work: The Pennsylvania Dutch Enthusiasm for Berlin Wool Embroidery, 1830-1900." 

Friday morning we got there early so we perused the vendors on the first floor and checked out the gift shop.  Here's what I couldn't live without.

I couldn't resist the faux iron fence.  I plan to put it around my feather tree display at Christmas time.  The calendar may be out of date but the pictures in it are fabulous.  All the pieces pictured in it are in the Schwenkfelder's collection. I really liked the card and the book mark too.

Then there was Mad Sampler Books.  Oh. My. Goodness.  Did I lose my mind there!  I ended up making three trips to this booth.  Yep, I sure did!  The first trip yielded the Scottish wool for needlbook pages, the needle minder and the needle keep.

The second trip was for the Quaker Pinballs book after seeing some uber expensive pinballs upstairs in the other vendors section (more on that in a bit).  I decided I could make my own and the vendor who had them was nice enough to tip me off that this book was downstairs so down I went.

I hadn't even left the booth when the third trip happened.  My peep, Linda spied the SAN book and knew the first edition was hard to come by so she bought one.  Paige, the bookseller, said she had a second copy so I scooped it up while I had the chance.  Score!

One of the highlights of the event was running into Chris from Tot Hill Farm Stitches.  I almost literally ran into her too.  LOL!  I had taken the goodies above to the car before the lecture and recognized her outside on the sidewalk.  It was so delightful to run into Chris.  It was as if we've known each other forever.  How completely cool is that?!  We got to experience both days' lectures together too. I hope we have another opportunity to get together sometime.

After our lecture we ventured upstairs to see the other vendors.  We both loved the name of this vendor, Cat Lady Antiques.  Cute!  One of our peeps, Evie is a huge cat lover.  We couldn't resist snapping this picture for her.

Some of you may know that I collect strawberries, particularly strawberry pincushions.  Check out this huge one!  Needless to say I couldn't afford to buy this one but I'm glad I got a picture.  Funny story about a strawberry, I had purchased one in the gift shop earlier only to find later that evening it had never made it into my bag.  When I went back the next day for it the clerks had found it on the floor and sold it.  Thankfully they refunded my money.  It was a little disappointing but at least they made it right.

Here are the antique pinballs I mentioned.  Check out the prices on these, $725, $850, $1,100 and $1,300!  W-O-W!  Now you know why I decided I'd just make my own and now you understand why I was so thankful that vendor gave me the tip about the book downstairs.  They sure were pretty though. The blue one is queen stitches and the two on the right are knitted.

 

We did find a vendor who's things were within our price range.  This is what I picked up.  

I already have a brass bullet etui and fell in love with this silver one.  I actually think it may be aluminum or maybe tin.  It was the tiny petit point that sold me on it.  I have no idea its age.  I suspect it's not that old since the thread is wound on a plastic center.  Isn't it sweet?

After we checked out the three upstairs rooms full of museum quality vendors, we decided to hop on the turnpike and venture down to Bristol, PA to visit Ye Olde Cross Stitchery.  The last time I was in the area I had wanted to stop here but we ran out of time.  We got the impression this shop does more online business than walk-ins.  Still it was nice to visit a shop we hadn't been to before.

Of course I found a few things I couldn't live without too.  The beads and the red sparkle braid are for a Nora Corbett piece I want to start soon.  I rarely see banding locally so I picked up a small piece of that too.  I have no idea what I'll do with it but I'm sure I'll eventually figure something out.  The purple floss is a replacement for one I'm using on "Heaven Above."

Here's a comparison.  The one on the left is the new one and the one on the right is the one I already had.  It's interesting to me that the new one is from the old company and the one on the right is from the new one.  I understand that over-dyes vary from batch to batch too.  Anywho, I feel like the new one is more the same intensity as the rest of my floss and won't feel as heavy as the one I started out using.

Before we left the shop we asked for a recommendation for lunch.  We ended up here at the Golden Eagle Diner.  We don't have diners where we live so this was quite an experience!  Their menu was practically as big as the phone book.  So many choices it was hard to decide what to get!

This was the first thing we saw when we walked inside.  A huge pastry counter!  It was like there was a bakery in there with the restaurant.  Is this a normal thing for a diner?!  Holy smokes!

Even though we were stuffed from our sandwiches, we couldn't resist a the canoli.  We each took one of those with us to go for later consumption in the hotel.  And, yes, they were as good as they looked too.  Yum!

After lunch we made our way back to the hotel.  We decided we still had time to go back to the museum to check out the exhibits.  When we got there we decided to look around the first floor vendors again.  This time I had to pickup this homemade lucet from Liberty Linens.  It's made of the nicest maple and is super smooth.  It feels good in the hand.  It even came with the skein of floss and instructions.  I have a small collection of lucets after taking Sherri Jones' class.  Since it was getting close to closing time, we changed our plans and decided to check out the exhibits the next day.

On our way back to the hotel, we remembered we'd seen this roadside honey vendor.  She was still open so we stopped.  We each tried a couple samples before choosing our jar.  This is the sweetest honey ever.  The kind we got is a bit crystallized so it's spreadable.  Can't wait to try it on some biscuits.

Well folks on that sweet note I'm going to stop here for today.  There's more to come!  Stay tuned!


More next time,

The Inspired Stitcher