Hands On Activities for Your Itineraries
Experience the Quilt Gardens TourSM
selected as an ABA Top 100 Event for 2010
Customize your itinerary with these fun, easy and memorable add-on activities!
Amish Quilting Bee
Amish Quilting Bee & family-style meal at an Amish homestead--$30 pp incl tax and tip
Elaine Jones invites you to join her and her family and friends in an Amish quilting bee. The ladies will first serve you a delicious home-cooked, 2 meat, traditional Amish meal. Then pull up a chair around 4 original quilt frames filled with hand pieced Amish quilts. They’ll demonstrate how to piece, mark and get the quilt ready to sew. Then you’ll site beside them and participate, watch, learn or just chat as these Amish ladies lead the novice and experienced quilter in an old fashioned quilting bee.
Amish Acres
Make-Bake-n-Take Shoofly Pie - Amish Acres, Nappanee. $7pp
-Conducted by Old Order Amish Bakery Manager, Frieda Miller, in Amish Acres 8,000 sq. ft. kitchen
-Recipe, tips, and baking secrets shared as everyone bakes and takes a mini shoofly pie
B&L Woodcrafts
Personalized Birdhouse - B&L Woodcrafts, Middlebury. $12pp
-At a woodworking shop on an Amish farmstead filled with crafts and furniture perfect for shopping
-Custom select colors, decorations and sayings for a souvenir birdhouse made by the Helmuth family
The Essenhaus Village Shops are offering a variety of classes during 2010. Contact our Village Shops Events Coordinator, Gail Janssen, at 800-455-9471 (x418) for more details or to schedule your class today for groups of 8 to 25 individuals.
All class costs include supplies, samples, instruction and finished project to take home as a souvenir. Must confirm final count 48 hours prior to arrival.
Quilt Garden Basics (1 hour class) Cost: $10.00/person
Learn about our areas most “fresh” itinerary option! Gail will walk you through basic quilt patterns to incorporate into your own back yard garden, talk about color placement, make flower suggestions, and provide you with handouts to take home. Use your new found knowledge to create your own gardening masterpiece!
(Groups of 8 or more people.)
Cooking with Kevin (1 hour class) Cost: $12.00/person
Kevin Eyer, Das Dutchman Essenhaus employee, teaches quick and easy meal tips that can help you manage your busy schedule and still maintain healthy home cooking. Class cost includes food samples and copies of all recipes demonstrated.
(Groups of 10 or more people.)
Bow Making the Professional Way (1 hour class) Cost: $12.00/person
Make a big beautiful bow to place on special gifts or use as seasonal décor."
(Groups of 8 or more people.)
Deck the Halls (2 hour class) Cost: $35.00/person
This hands-on interactive class allows you to decorate your own green wreath using mixed leaves, floral pieces, and ribbon. You may choose your own style and colors, too, not limited for the Christmas holiday only.
(Groups of 12 to 20 people.)
Experiences at The Quilt Shop
Ros Stoffel, owner of The Quilt Shop, has developed several fun and unique classes that allow you to create and complete your own souvenir in Amish Country to take home to remember your journey. To schedule any or all of these classes for your group, or for additional information, please contact Ros at The Quilt Shop at 800-455-9471 (x300).
Locker Hooking Mug Mat (45 - 60 minute class) Cost: $15.00/person
Easier and better than latch hooking! Locker hooking is the latest trend in no-sew crafting. With this simple ‘loop and pull’ technique, hook fabric into a canvas and quickly create a “Mug Mat” or coaster (7” completed project) that’s easy to make and take. The ease and simplicity of the program makes it a winner for all ages AND the class cost includes the locker hook that is yours to keep!
Quilt Magic! (approximately 45 minutes) Cost: $8.50/person
Ros makes Quilt Magic come to life. Select and complete your own 6” x 6” foam quilt block with very little instruction and without any actual stitching. A quick and easy fabric ‘paint by number’ concept fun for everyone. Ask for a special seasonal, quilt pattern, holiday block or ask Ros for other themed selections.
Michiana Master Gardeners Association
The members of Michiana Master Gardeners Association are eager to share their love of gardening by offering a variety of interesting and useful seminars to tour groups. Programs run 30-60 minutes and can be conducted at various sites throughout the destination such as restaurants, hotels or garden centers to best fit into your itinerary. Seminars are free of charge, but a donation to the Michiana Master Gardeners Association Scholarship Fund is appreciated. Programs include:
Make Your Backyard a Bird and Butterfly Magnet
Make your yard the center of attention for wild birds and butterflies. Learn from the experts the best choices for plants, shrubs, feeders and more. Plus get insider tips on how to discourage those unwanted visitors to your feeders.
Planting a Perfect Pot
It’s container gardening 101. Find out what makes the best planter and what’s needed to get started. Plus learn the secrets of using color and structure to add beauty to a patio or yard.
Grasses Galore!
Ornamental grasses are great for giving landscapes and gardens that special look.
Find out the how, where and whys of choosing and using a variety of these easy-to-care-for plants.
Gardening for the Time Starved
Love gardens but don’t have the time to care for them? No more excuses after this seminar. Learn from the best how to choose and plant a low maintenance, drought tolerant garden.
Lazy, Shady Gardens
Planting a flourishing shade garden can be easy – it’s all in the knowing. Discover winning secrets and tips to make to make a shady spot “shine”.
Make It Summer Indoors
Indoor plants get the winter blahs too. Help them thrive with expert advice on placement, care and feeding to keep it summery indoors when the days grow short and blustery.
Bag some fun for your Group! Add the Brown Bag Tour to your Amish Country trip. Travel Amish Country’s backroads to visit select, locally owned shops. Along the way each traveler receives a special treat for their brown shopping bag. By the end of the tour, the little brown bag is full! $12pp + Tour Guide Fee
Yoder's Home-Style Cooking Class
Price Range: $14.84 for Family Style Meal, $11.50 for Haystack, $4.00 for buggy rides, $25 for cooking lesson/meal
Experience first hand the tips and techniques found in an Amish kitchen. Learn to make delicious homemade breads, fluffy mashed potatoes (with no lumps, of course) and other family specialties. Then sit down to enjoy the dishes you've just learned to prepare. Ask about Amish games, cooking baking demonstrations, buggy rides or other fun interactive programs for groups.
Recreation
Elkhart County Parks Department $1-$5 pp
A variety of programs are offered including nature hikes, photo workshops, astronomy instruction and bird watching. For example, corn husks are wonderful for making natural craft projects. Craft classes offer a chance to make candles or even a pine cone centerpiece for the holidays.
Goshen City Parks and Recreation Department
Admission: $10 for first hour, $5 for each additional hour, plus $20 deposit per canoe
Travel on the Elkhart River past scenic woods and picturesque foliage in a two-person canoe. You'll begin at the Goshen Dam and Mill Race area then proceed to Shanklin Park, Rogers Park or Ox Bow County Park. (Paddles and life jackets are included.)
