Paducah quilt Festival

After Cancun we flew to Chicago for an overnight stopover, then next morning caught one of the two flights a day to Paducah.

The flight took only 59mins, on our arrival, we had a pleasant surprise, as our house hosts, Tony and Elva were at the airport to greet us. The airport in Paducah reminds me a lot like Dubbo. There were
quilts hanging all over the airport.

Tony (our host) was very gracious and asked me is there somewhere I would like to go to....yes Hexie House, paper pieces as I knew Katja Marek was giving a talk, perfect opportunity to buy her book and have it signed.

Hexi House

It is nice to go inside a building, where you get to know where you have ordered your EPP from.

I was lucky enough to also buy MSG new book that has just been released in Nantes.

The next stop was a bright sign, beckoning me.... "FABRIC Sale"

Inside was a very large space and so much fabric, at $3 a yard, what could one do, but buy, buy, buy, I had not even been in Paducah for an hour before I had several yards of fabric.

Hancocks was also mentioned, we drove past...and the line was long. DH looked at a graph on the Hancocks web page and the best time to go was early morning, so that will be tackled on Thursday before I venture into the quilt show at the Convention centre.

We all went to dinner in Calvert City at a place called Crackerbarrel, this restaurant is dry, so DH settled for earl grey tea.

Onto our home for the next 4 days where we will be staying with Tony and Elva.

A double wedding ring quilt graced our bed, how welcoming!

After a comfortable nights sleep, up had breakfast then off to Hancocks, the line was no better and all the coaches were lined up....oh well now or never....

Inside was just as busy, but very organised and I did not have to wait long for my metres of fabric to be cut

Aisle and aisle's of fabric and the crowd.

I had a good 45 mins inside and managed to grab some great fabrics, nice to see the building, this is my favourite place to order fabric from when at home.

After my visit to Hancocks, Elva and DH dropped me off at the convention centre, DH will have some well deserved R & R

The crowds were no better at the quilt show, the quilt show was spread over 3 locations and one was in a big pavilion which took a good 5 mins to walk too, with more vendors inside.

Lunch time was standing room only.

The food area was outside under tents.

I will share a few of the quilts that I really liked as well as the grand prize winner.

These 3 quilts were prize winners

A whole cloth quilted.

One of the first prize winners by Colette Dumont from Canada, aptly named "Victory",this quilt was home machined quilted.

2nd prize winner, home machined quilted, "Why Not " this quilt was amazing and what made it most special, It is Angela  Petrocelli first attempt at making a quilt as well as machine quilted at home, on a domestic machine, she was quite young and as you can see quite talented.

Always nice to run into a fellow Aussie, Karen Styles from Sommerset Cottage, and in the background, is her gorgeous new quilt.

This quilt was creative and appealed to my quirky side.

Great theardwork as well

More thread work

This quilt is another Trispective quilt, similar to the one I saw in Houston in 2014, sign above of what it is called and who made it. Looks like it is the same quilter, great work.

This was s the one from Houston 2014

There was also a double one

One angle, Statue of Liberty

New York Beauty.

To finish off this was my viewers choice, the detail and imagination that went into this quilt was absolutely amazing and so creative.

Some close ups

To sum it all up, there were many amazing quilts and very well displayed. 

I will continue in a later blog about my adventures in Paducah.

Goodbye Mexico, Cancun and Chichen Itza

Monday we departed at 0920hrs to drive the 1 1/2hr to Chichen Itza, on arrival we had a little time to explore the chocolate shop, before we set of to explore the ruins. It was a very hot day, over 40 degree heat inside the ruins.

Chichen Itza

DH and I, another one of the seven  modern wonders ticked off our list. 

There are over 490 columns in these ruins.

Off course the place is overrun with tourists and souvenir stall holders.

The acoustics are amazing in these places.

All the stall holders along all the paths as you walk to the ruins.

We visited this sinkhole, not used for swimming, as access is poor and the water is stagnant.

Peacock

We had company at lunch. 

At 3.30 pm we departed  for Cancun  it took Nearly 3 hrs to drive from Chichen Itza to Cancun.

On arrival to Cancun, what a disappointment, so tourist orientated, so many resorts and shops.

A slight disappointment after enjoying the rustic side of Mexico.

A short stroll from our hotel to explore.

A little like the gold coast at home or a miniature  Vegas.

This appears to be a popular night club

Francy pubs!

The dome of our hotel

The floor of our hotel, no charm in this resort!

The pool near the beach, the beaches are nice, white sand.

You can hire a Bali bed for $239, not sure for how long?

The pool has cement lounges, so that you may just recline in them, have a drink etc.

I was very pleased that we only had one day and one night in Cancun, as it is very commercialised and very much geared towards tourists. 

We departed for Chicago the next day.

This is my prep work for La Passcaglia, With all the travelling and sight seeing not much time to sew! 

Onto Chicago.

Merida, Yucatan state, Mexico

Goodbye Oaxaca and onto Merida.

We departed for Merida from Oaxaca to fly to Mexico City which took 50mins, then from Mexico City to Merida, 1 hr 35min later, we flew to avoid the 12 hrs bus trips, we arrived into Merida, the resort costal town of Yucatan State. After checking into our fabulous hotel De Fray Diego, we went for a short walk to the centre of town, to explore and discover what this town has to offer.

Our hotel in the historical district! I will say that the namesake of our hotel was responsible for destroying 95% of the Mayan history and Mayan buildings, he was Spanish!

Staying at this hotel which was originally a mission appeals to my fascination of religious icons.

The namesake!

Our room, I loved that they had marcel's for bed covers.

Merida is obviously designed for tourists, lots of shops and eating places, the population is 1,000,000.

The next day we did the city tour, covering a wide preiminater of the city in a very old bus.

This monument is a dedication to the early Mayans that settled in this area.

One of the entires into the park area, the park has four entries.

Another entry.

The main Cathederal in Merida, it has the largest cross that I have seen so far and not very ornate.

One of the oldest churches in the city.

Great rustic art.

We also visited the rich area of Merida, very interesting designs of houses, moorish, baroque and French provincial, the house sell for about 4,000,000 USD

This ended our city tour, we then walked around the square in town and visited a handicraft shop where, quilts, rugs, scarves and embroideries clothes are made. The quilts are Mayan and all handmade.

This is a collection of embroidered squares sewn together the overall effect is quite stunning,the price of one of these quilts are about 3,000pesos=$300 roughly.

These quilts are very rustic!

DH and I discovered a great little cafe just down from our hotel, all things Frida so I was very happy to just sit and have a meal and admire all the memoriabilla, of Frida and her life. 

I struck up a limited conversation with the owner to see if anything was for sale, in my limited Spanish and her limited English, and great hand gestures, the owner produced a card, where she got the table runner and fabric from. On return to our hotel where the concierge could speak English, a phone call was made and my long suffering husband was dragged into a taxi to find the place. 

On arrival we looked at the facade and thought what do we have here......inside we go and lol and behold it is a printing shop, where images are printed onto fabric the of your choice and no..... They could not have it ready in 2 days, after some persistence and limited English out comes a delightful teenager who can speak English and that is when the magic happened, out came a ready made table runner, other items as well, I picked some images and while we waited, they were printed. The young teenager organised us a taxi back to our hotel and we were on our way.

Some of the of my purchases!

Saturday we had a full day tour to Uxmal and Kabah, visiting more Mayan temples, a very hot day, but the wildlife was great.

Mayan temple in Uxmal, this is where De Fray Diego discovered and invaded.

Loved the iguanas

Another visit to a chocolate factory, Mexican  chocolate does not taste like Cadbury.

This ends our tour for Saturday, a very hot day 40 degrees, back to the hotel for a swim.

On Sunday we were on another tour to Celestun, This tour was on the coast and we got a boat ride to visit the flamingoes, had a seafood lunch on the beach and was quite a pleasant day with good company.

Our boat!

The flamingos were interesting to watch.

There was an opportunity to have a swim as well.

Interesting bird life.

After lunch we travelled to 1 1/2 hr back to Merida, for a swim and relax.

Sunday concludes  our time in Merida, Monday we leave to visit Chitken Itza, then onto Can Caun.

"ADIOS " amigo for now.