Graceland

We did an early Monday morning tour of Graceland.  We spent aver 3 hours there including the mansion, planes, and several museums.  Can I just say that it was a little overwhelming.  Most of my photos were taken in the mansion.  

This is the living room to the left as you enter the front door and the custom made fifteen foot couch.

The staircase to the second floor which wasn't part of the tour.

The dining room to the right as you enter the front door.

The kitchen..........the most normal looking part of the house.

What would now be known as the media room........in bright yellow.

The billiard room.........with fabric on the walls and ceiling.

The jungle room

David noted that President Trump visited Graceland after we were there.  We were so thankful to have missed that!  He was photographed sitting in the jungle room.  I said perhaps he was getting decorating ideas for his new ballroom.

We saw so much more, but it was overwhelming.  Below is one wall of Elvis' jumpsuits.  There were so many more.

And we got to see his airplanes and all of the cars.  

It's one of those things that I can say I've seen and was glad I did it, but I don't ever need to do it again.

Christi

 

Sewing room catch up

Let's take a break in the trip recaps and catch up on the sewing room.  First, I had to put everything away that I purchased at Marshall Dry Goods.  I didn't take a picture, but I did manage to get all the bolts on my shelf (fortunately one bolt is going to my mom because it wouldn't have fit).  Esme found a place to stay out of the way, but where she could still watch everything.  For the first 3 days we were back, she barely left my side, and did get tired of being stepped on, so hanging out on the sewing machine seemed like a safe bet.

Of course, all the sorting and putting stuff away can wear a girl out.  She's looking forward to seeing what happens with all that fabric!

I also managed to get a baby quilt quilted for a young couple at church (who's baby came early, it was announced on Sunday).  It was passed off to someone else to bind and gift.  Next, I added the black border to the red chalet quilt top.  I bought a bolt of this fabric and it will also be used as a backing for a quilt that is cut, but doesn't have anything sewn yet.  This was a block lotto from guild that I won in December.

Then I worked on the block lotto blocks that are due at the April meeting.  I think these flowers are pretty cute and would not be unhappy to win them.

Next up was to make a backing for the chalet quilt.  I used 2.5 yards of the grey picnic fabric that I bought at MDG last summer for backing for my sister's big quilt.  I didn't want to cut two widths and have a random seam across the bottom with a lot of excess fabric, so I turned on the math brain and did the diagonal seam method to not waste so much fabric.  There is a nice cheat sheet online and I did all the math to figure I needed about 2.5 yards.  I pressed it diagonally, cut on the press line and then laid it on the floor in Sarah's room.

Mabel was on her bed, supposedly supervising, but you can see she was slacking on the job.

Then I started shifting the pieces to get it to 58" wide.

A little more shift - my yard stick is actually 48" and the square ruler is a 10" square ruler.

Then lay the top on it to test it and it worked!

I pinned the diagonal seam and sewed it and then had to trim off the triangle pieces.

I quilted it yesterday (instead of cleaning the kitchen floor) and still need to take it off the longarm.

I also did my Tuit project.  You can see the Round Tuit in the photo.  There are 2 of these that float around the guild and if you take it, you have to show something you got around to doing at the next meeting.  I finally finished the blocks for the O Christmas Tree quilt.  80 blocks that seemed to take forever.  Yeah!

Harry Potter and Mabel were unimpressed with my efforts.  

Friday I took my cousins to St. Louis.  Sarah and Pam went to an anniversary organ recital and reception and Susie and I went to an estate sale, Main Street St. Charles for lunch at the Lewis and Clark, the mall, and then to this little Italian place for an afternoon dessert that we love...............lemoncello!

At first the waiter told us they were out, so we ordered brownie sundaes instead.  Then he came back to our table and said that they had just gotten them back in, so YEAH!

And in other really weird things.............

Do we marvel at Mabel's ability to balance on the edge of the window seat like that or the fact that those 3 cats are hanging out that close together which is surely a warning sign of the apocalypse?

Christi

Food and other Fun!

Do you ever plan a trip around places you want to eat?  Well, we sorta did that.  We arranged to spend our first night in Eureka Springs with the plan to eat at Ermilio's Italian Home Cooking.  We had eaten here some 30 years ago and according to the google, it was still in operation.  We remembered the roasted garlic they brought to your table to spread on the good bread.  They still had it and it was delicious!

Here was David's entree..............

And this was mine............... and of course there was the bread and a really good salad!

It was a good thing we carbed up on the way to the University of Arkansas because the food offerings at the track meet were nil.  You weren't allowed to bring anything in and the concession stand only had hot dogs, nachos, popcorn, and limited candy bars, and of course, a $5 bottle of water.

My sister ordered Dominoes Pizza the first night and it was ............OK, but not what I was craving.  Fortunately our hotel offered a pretty good complimentary breakfast.  The second evening (everyone else headed home, but we were continuing our "vacation"), we went to a restaurant called Farm to Table and it was very good, although very loud due to the group of sorority girls and their moms at the next table.  We stopped for ice cream on the way back to the hotel and that helped cool our ears down.

Driving to Memphis on Sunday, we stopped for lunch at..........

and boy, was it some good catfish!  Our first stop in Memphis was the Bass Pro Shoppe Pyramid.  We enjoyed the architecture and shopped a little.

An interior shot.............

Then we headed to the Peabody Hotel to see the ducks in the fountain in the lobby.  We parked in the parking garage and were a little confused as to what the proper thing to do with our guns was (we didn't have any, but thought the signage was a little confusing).

Five of the cutest ducks were swimming in the fountain in the lobby.

And at 5 pm, a red carpet was rolled out for the ducks to use (you wouldn't want them to slip on the marble floor, would you?) to get to the elevator that would take them to their overnight accommodations on the rooftop

It was quite the eventful procession!

Then we walked a couple of blocks to Beale Street to eat at the Blues City Cafe.  Again, delicious.  David had the ribs and I had shrimp and crab stuffed mushrooms and a salad.

There was a pink cadillac on the wall

And a couple of shots of the street.  My sister warned us about being there after dark and there was a National Guard presence.  We didn't linger because rain (and a pretty good storm) was coming.

The next (very cold and windy) morning, we headed to Graceland.  More about that in another post!

Christi

 

Track and Fabric, As Promised!

Well here's our TWO TIME NCAA FIRST TEAM ALL AMERICAN!

These photos were taken after the first day's events.............. 60 meters, long jump, shot put, and high jump.  It was a roller coaster day.  Everyone is pretty sure his third jump in the long jump was mis-measured and his coaches filed an appeal, he was given an extra jump, but it was never counted as the NCAA rarely grants appeals.  He kept plowing on though and came back big time to set a new PR in the high jump (going 1/4" higher than ever before, and we quilters know that every 1/4" counts!)

Here he is with cousins Pam and Susie, and I threw in the pic below with his "little" brother and brother's fiance, Carmyn, just to point out that Carter is really not that big when it comes to track athletes.  I hadn't realized it until we saw the size of the competition.

He did the hurdles, pole vault, and 1000 meters the second day and had a new PR in the 1000.  He also scored over 6000 points for the second time in his career.  This put him in 6th overall and first team All American status for the second year.  Last year he was fifth, but with a lower point total.  If he'd had this point total last year, I think he might have been second last year.  It was just a stacked field of competitors.  We also learned that the kid who won was paid a million dollars to transfer to Oregon last year.  Carter was a walk on freshman, and is now on full ride scholarship.

And please remember that we were in Arkansas.  That's the only explanation I can give for why none of them wore shoes on the podium.

There was limited sewing time before we left, but you know I just couldn't leave the snails alone.  Here are the last 6 for the quilt.  All 12 and the flowers made the trip with us so that I could shop for border and backing.

We made it to Marshall Dry Goods on Monday afternoon for a couple of hours of shopping.  Here are the fabrics I got for my mom.

We returned on Tuesday morning, (David's birthday) for a couple more hours.  I don't have anymore fabric pics to share.  I only bought what was on my list!  Maybe that was my birthday gift to David, no impulse buys, only borders and backings!

 This is the new retreat center they have across the street.  I didn't find out anything about it, don't even know if it's open yet.

Well, there was much more to the trip including some fabulous food, but I'll leave that for another post.

Christi