Lucy & Bonnie Do Paducah!

I am home....and Lucy is at this moment winging her way back to the Netherlands. According to my calculations, she should be home about 2 am eastern standard time...Poor Lucy! I hope she is sleeping on the flight, because we sure wore each other out on this whirlwind trip!

There is so much to cover, and I think it will be fun to give Lucy a chance to catch up and post which pictures she wants to post. She was our shutter bug on this trip, and since she is so good, I just let her keep the camera, and uploaded all the pics we took onto my computer before she left. I will tantalize you with just a few of our funniest shots!

The reader's digest condensed version:

I picked Lucy up at the airport on Saturday the 21st. We rushed her over to Olive Garden where my son Jason had us seated in his section, and our dinner was taken care of for us!

Then, because Lucy was so worn out, we came home, put her to bed......she needed it!

Sunday the 22nd had us running down the road to Charleston where we spent the day. She took pics of everything and was really enamoured with the historic section of town and all the old buildings. I'm sure there will be lots of pics on her blog to come of those!

We also hit every antique shop we could find, and since most quilts were an arm and a leg, we took pics of all that interested us for inspiration. I think the pics we took are my favorite souvenir of her trip...so many quilts to dream of making, and to use for inspiration! I'm sure many quilt pics will show up on her blog in the next weeks too!

Monday we headed for Paducah....with no set time in mind. We stopped at every antique mall that had signs posted on the interstate, antiquing our way from SC to NC to TN and to KY! We made it as far as Nashville monday night....worn out! We bunked at a Day's Inn just outside of Nashville and started our day Tuesday by looking for a huge guitar store we had found earlier on the internet where she could find some goodies for her hubby. More antiquing followed....and we rolled into our lodgings at Big Bear Resort on Lake Kentucky at dinner time. Yes folks, it took us 2 days to travel what should have taken us 8 to 9 hours...*hehehe*

This was my first trip to Paducah, and it was well worth the drive. It did take us 3 days to see and do everything we wanted to fit in, and all but one night we fell asleep early, unable to keep our eyes open.

Thursday night we met up with Dawn and her bunch! What a fun group of ladies they are, I never laughed so hard! one of the members was a semi-finalist in the show and her quilt was wonderful! We had a great time with them and were so amazed by the friendship and gifts we were bestowed, a couple of worn out strangers that we were! But because of the wonders of the internet, we fit right in and felt like we knew everyone instantly!

Friday was the last day....we wrapped up the show by going out with Dawn, Laura, and Linda for dinner at Texas Roadhouse! You can't do a trip to the South without a trip to Texas Roadhouse!

Saturday we got an early start and drove home all day. We arrived here about dinner time. A stop at an antique mall in Lebanon TN resulted in my adopting an old string quilt! It's dark now, so I'll get a pic later..but I couldn't pass it up at $75.00

As for my purchases....well....I'd like to say I did really well in the fabric department as far as curbing my buying goes, but after a couple of days, I threw caution to the wind and tried to keep up with Lucy! My biggest purchase was for FQ's of background fabrics, so I guess they are legal. There were some other colors I was low on and I needed to round out those a bit. And then, when things get to be $1.00 an FQ.....well, need I say more? I started to buy just because I liked them, and I'm glad my money ran out!

This morning while Lucy was packing and talking to her hubby on yahoo (Fun to see them webcam each other!)I started culling through my FQ drawers. I am ALL OUT of light 2.5" strips, and several colors are depleted for making scrap quilts. I am down to the dregs in my bins of strips in the 2" and 2.5" size, so I'm going to cut fresh strips from the culled FQ's. Lucy was great at giving inspiration! "Strip that one!" "No, save that one"....."bllllkkkkk...DEFINATELY strip that one!". So now I have a laundry basket full of culled FQ's and partial pieces to be cut into my scraps so I won't be so tired of the same ole same ole anymore. This pic is of the pile of FQ's I culled out of my drawers.....

Tomorrow is monday,and life has to get back to normal. I wish I had another weekend to recover!

Bonnie