The route of your trip is beautiful, enjoy, sorry I can't help on quilt shops.

Make sure when you are in NB you say Saint John NOT St. John's, they are very picky about that. But they do make some allowances for you "Come From Aways" ;)

Sorry for your loss and its inconvenient timing, you will have to plan another trip. My family came from Scotland(around the same time, I suspect you were part of the clearances as well) and I was able to take a trip about 10 years ago and take my Grandmother, we had a great time.

Be prepared if you say that you have relatives from there you will be interrogated, you will need your grandmothers maiden name and both of her parents and where they come from, for a start. The people asking will be making complicated lineage calculations to figure out how you are related, and given the low level of immigration(apart from new ones) in the Maritimes you likely are related. They will also want to know when and why she moved to the "Boston States". My guess by age would be that she was one of the thousands of war widows or for those not married prior to WWI women after simply with no young men to marry, from the catastrophic losses suffered by the Maritime regiments.

You will love the Maritime vernacular, it's wonderful and like most is disappearing, even in the time I lived there it was less and less with the younger kids.

ETA- I live in Southern Albany County.