All Things Amish–Lolly’s Fabrics and Quilts

For the next few Saturdays, I want to share with you some of my favorite spots in Shipshewana, Indiana … the setting for Falling to Pieces and my upcoming release, A Perfect Square. When I decided to use a real town for my fictional series, I kept some things the same, and I changed other things when I needed to for the story line. Lolly’s is, of course, Daisy’s Quilt Shop.

I had an awful lot of fun visiting the town. So far, I’ve been three times, and I hope to go back again soon. You can see Lolly’s shop in parts of this video and you also see it at the top of this blog. Lolly’s is owned by Mike and Kris Stutzman. Kris has read an early copy of A Perfect Square, and this is what she had to say:

when I was reading A Perfect Square I was sure you had written it after being in Shipshewana. I could almost hear the horse and buggies going past the shop in the book. You did such a good job of showing the interaction between the Amish and the English. I could not put the book down. Growing up I was Amish, so I felt like “Deborah” at times. But, more times than not I was “Callie”. My Aunt Leora, who we all affectionately call Lolly moved out West in 1984 with her family. I’m keeping Lolly’s candle burning bright  for quilters who came from all over the world to visit the shop with an abundance of warm fuzzies. I was awarded a scholarship for college, but with my aunt Lolly’s departure my father felt a certain sense of responsibility to keep the shop going. The rest, as they say, is history. After graduation I went right to work at Lolly’s, I’ve been there so long that some of the customers think I’m Lolly! 

Kris has always been kind to me when I visited Lolly’s, and believe me … when you visit this quilt shop you want to STAY! It’s just one more thing that makes Shipshewana special. If you’re ever in northern Indiana, I hope you’ll stop by and say hello to her.

V~

ps – you still have time to enter last Tuesday’s contest. I’ll draw a name tomorrow evening. Just click back to Tuesday’s blog post using the back arrow at the top of the page.