Vacation Continues

We decided one day to go and check out the new modern quilt shop in Sarasota. 

 It is called the Modern Sewist.  

As you can see this is a beautiful shop!  They has so many of the beautiful fabrics I only see online.

Before the Big Cat Rescue Sanctuary we stopped for lunch at Stottlemeyers.

OMGosh, the BEST BBQ nacho plate EVER!

We went to the Big Cat Rescue in Sarasota this trip.  We have not gone there before. 

 It was pretty interesting.  All the cats are rescue animals and so are all the other animals there.  

These cats eat between 20-50 pounds of meat per day!!!  

They sure are beautiful animals though. 

 Sad to see them in cages, but they make great ambassador animals.

They would otherwise have had to be euthanized, which is even sadder.

The white tiger is called Barry White!  LOL

This Liger (Lion Tiger cross) was called Mia.

She was gorgeous!

They has some Serval cats too.  They are a smaller cat (think Labrador size)

They were so cute!

The last day we were there we went for a ride on my BIL's boat.

Here you see my BIL, hubby and his father.

My BIL and SIL live on Bird Key so we left from their place.

 Out in Sarasota bay just a short way from the bridge we saw a Manatee and her baby.  

There was a single Manatee too but I didn't get a photo of that one.  

It's difficult to get good photos with a cell phone too.

Leonardo DeCaprio is building a home here too and we went past it.

It reminded me of an office building.

We went down the canal to the left of the house and some dolphins followed us.

View from my BIL/SIL house.

Don't you just love the pool??

We had a beautiful sunset and thank them for hosting us!

It is always fun to get together.

 I leave you with a video of the dolphins in the bay.

 A few more quilt shops to share and also the spoils.

I think that needs to hold off for another post though.

~XOP~

The Long Road Home

After we left Florida, we traveled on to Tennessee.  

We spent the night at a hotel that had a great view.  

Fortuitously, it was on the front side of the I75 road closure.  

We found that I-75 was closed due to a rock slide.  

It had to be pretty major as it closed BOTH sides of the highway!

The road closure necessitated a detour, that ended up being the best part of the road trip!

The scenery was just fantastic!  It took us longer but it was worth it.

Following a river and VERY twisty roads. 

 Poor hubby couldn't see as much as I could as he was trying to remain on the road.  

Some of the photos are not the best as they were while we were moving and 

also through the car window, but you get the idea.

Look at the color of this river!

I couldn't get a good photo of the BIG rock faces and this was a smaller one, but you can see that the road was literally carved out of this mountain.

So pretty as the sun peeked around the mountains over the river.

We had determined to stop at Jungle Jims. 

 I can't even begin to tell you what this place is like.  

Imagine your largest grocery store and at least triple it!  

It is HUGE.  

There are two and they are in Cincinnati.  

Just check out their website and you will see what I mean.  

I was totally fascinated by these ginormous shrimp!  

They were as thick as my forearm!!! 

 And next to them are sea urchins.  

After spending a couple of hours in here we traveled to Wayensville Ohio to go to the Fabric Shack.

If you are there you should stop in this town.

In addition to the fabric shop there were lots of antique shops.

This is the stack of fabrics I bought there.

I could have done sooooooo much more damage though.

One of the antique shops that reclaims old building parts and such had this great thread chest.  

I would have loved to have taken this baby home with me.  

The part about stopping in the town was seeing this Singer Featherweight #68 cabinet in person!

This is a very rare cabinet built to house Featherweight machines.

They are very scarce and command an extremely high price.  This one was no exception.

It has a lift mechanism inside of it and the oval you see to the left in the photo goes over the top to make the whole thing into a table.  

Beautiful.

This website has a little history on the cabinet if you are interested.

This website has plans/kits to build your own.

So this concludes our trip.  

I hope you have enjoyed our travels and will stop back once I'm posting about my regular life again.

Have a great weekend!!

~XOP~

Continuing The Vacation

This next part of the vacation is a little more vacation oriented (but there is also some quilty stuff).

First up was hubby and his fishing obsession.  He caught this bass in the pond behind his dad's place.

It is a little difficult to actually see but if you look at the center tree, you can see the head of a crane.  They have made a nest in the top of the tree!  

We went to Venice beach for our first beach trip on Monday and the water was so pretty. 

 LOTS of people at the beach and it was by far the warmest of the days we were there.

After the beach we headed to the Daquri Deck for a frozen adult beverage and snacks.  

I had a wonderful handsome date too!

I had the pleasure of stopping at the Cotton Patch which is near my In-Laws place.  

It is the cutest little shop.  Very friendly and they have an adorable Bassett Hound named Fred!

Isn't this adorable?

Here is what I bought from The Cotton Patch.

One day there was a lot of rain and tornados. 

We set out to go to St Armand's Circle but due to the tornados, we scrapped that plan.

  We headed to Der Dutchman to eat lunch.  It was so good!  

Then we stopped at Alma Sue's quilt shop.  

Such an adorable shop complete with little Amish ladies hand quilting!  

You can see them on the right.

Hubby found this fish quilt that he thinks he wants me to make.  

I bought the pattern and a few "fishy" looking fabrics.  Into the que it goes!

Then we went to a shop called It's Sew Worth It.  They had a few more things for the fishy quilt.  

If you are into Batiks this place had a great selection.  

I can see these turning into fish.

 They did have some more modern fabrics. I found this Fox Field charm pack there.  

 I got to meet a friend from Instagram, Nicole.  

We met up at Panera and spent two hours gabbing and gabbing. 

 She is running an It's a Small World Quilt Along on IG and swims every morning at Siesta Key.  

We had fun talking and hubby was such a good sport!

More to come...

~XOP~

Ahhhhhh Florida

I just returned from a week long trip with my hubby to Florida. 

 We drove from Michigan and we took 2 days to do it.  

We stopped at a couple of quilt stores on the way down and that was nice! 

 I thought I would share the shops with you and let you take a shop hop (so to speak) with me.

The first shop that we stopped at was in East Bernstadt, Kentucky. 

 It was called Paula's Quilting Pantry.  It was in an old farm house in the middle of nowhere.

When I walked in the front door this is what greeted me.

Along with this beautiful antique quilt.

There was a big classroom area and this beauty was hanging in there.  

I thought this log cabin tile on the floor was pretty awesome also.  It gave me some ideas.

Here is the haul from this shop.  Some OOP Lizzy House and some neat black and white fabrics. 

 Just a peek of green solid for the next wedding quilt on the docket too.

  I loved that she gave me a calendar with that adorable cow on it too.

We stopped in Lake City, Florida, at this very purple shop.

This shop was huge and had quite a nice selection of some of the more modern fabrics.  

I found a couple of oldies but goodies to stock up on!

Then we had to get serious about arriving at our destination.  

Hubby wanted to do some fishing! 

 We arrived in Sarasota at my inlaws just in time to go to church.  

After that we went back to their place and had dinner with them and my SIL and BIL. 

 I was so tired, I ended up in bed at 7!!

More adventures coming soon. 

Did anyone miss me??

~XOP~

Taking a Siesta

I will be leaving for the sunny shores of Florida with my hubby for some much needed r and r.  

Off to visit the in-laws in Sarasota.

Siesta Key Beach here we come!!!

~XOP~