Vacation!!!

I am back from our Florida vacation! 

 It was a great break from my work.  

I brought a quilt to bind and only got half of it done, YIKES!  

We sure did have some fun though.  

We drove from MI to FL.  

We stopped in Georgia for the night on the way down and KY on the way home.  

There were several quilt shop stops both ways.  I am going to concentrate on the quilt shops here.

This shop was in glendale, OH It is called Stitches and Stuff.  

A very cute little shop.

I would go back here.

They had a pretty extensive collection of fabrics. 

 I found some of the new Kinder line by Heather Ross. 

They also had these giant fiberglass squirrels all over the town.

 This one is in front of the bakery

This shop was in Berea, KY  The shop was quite small but the lady working there was so nice.

This town had these odd fiberglass hands all around it.  

Now you will see I found LOADS of these gigantic fiberglass oddities on this trip!

We also stopped at Stitches N' Stuff in Powell, TN.  

This shop was so cute and she had a very nice selection of modern fabrics.

I really loved this shop!!

She also had a blind rescue dog in the shop that greeted us.  

The owner does a lot of work with this particular rescue.  

It was nice to hear that.

Isn't this peacock great?  I think I know someone that would like this on a quilt!

 Now I have the usual Florida photos and many look like previous years, 

so I am not going to bore you with those.  

Well, maybe just a few highlights.

We went to the strawberry festival in  Plant City.

 It was just a glorified carnival, but we had fun.  

Look at the strawberry hot seat amidst all those fresh berries.

I asked hubby if this was the strawberry festival or the whipped cream festival?!

I do have to say this guy is pretty special.

He plans all of the shop stops for me.

Then he walks around the town while I shop.

He always encourages me to buy at least one thing at each shop too.

This guy is a keeper!!!

This quilt shop, in Plant City, was probably one of my favorites in our line of stops.  

There was a HUGE selection and many of my favorite designers!  

I would love to go back here.

There were lots of little antique/junk shops in this town and at one of them I found this. 

 A Featherweight (in really rough shape, but they still wanted $250) 

and the FW folding table ($350).  

That table is on my wish list but that is a bit over my price limit!

For me, one of my favorite parts was going to visit my husband's sister and brother-in-law.  

They bought a place on Bird Key and it is so amazing! 

 In this photo hubby was trying to fish 

(he had on his "lucky" hat and everything) 

and everyone was crowded around watching 

(and offering helpful advice).

This is their pool.  Our niece got them the Flammingo.

Their house is so beautiful!  

We walked around St Armand's Circle and went to the Wyland Gallery

 where I saw these amazing peacock sculptures.  

They were made out of crystals and real peacock tail feathers!  

The crystals alone cost over 24K!!

We did eat at the Salty Dog, one of my favorites.  

One of their daily specials were Grouper egg rolls.

Let me just say, these were amazing!  

We got them as an appetizer and I could have eaten them all myself!!!

We stopped at Jungle Jim's in Cincinnati on our way home. 

 It is a gigantic store with all kinds of amazing foods and stuff in it including this fiberglass Rino!!

The last stop before home was the Fabric Shack. 

 I forgot to take photos of the shop, but this shop is well worth the stop.  

Tomorrow I will share my purchases!

Hope you enjoyed the virtual shop hop.

~XOP~