I went to NYC this weekend with 3 other women to celebrate Lora's 5oth birthday. It was a quick trip but we had a great time. We didn't do a show. Instead we went to The Cutting Room for music Friday and The Flatiron Room for whisky and jazz Saturday. I was in heaven at the Flatiron.

Our hotel was in the perfect location in the garment district and only a few blocks from the Empire State Building. We had this view from a rooftop bar next to the hotel. Right around the corner was M&J Trims and across from the hotel was Gotham Quilts!

I'm happy to report that I didn't by anything because I didn't NEED anything. But it was fun to visit the shops.

But what I will talk about a bit, if you will indulge me, are the 2 museums that we visited.

The first stop was the Cooper Hewett, one of my favorite museums anywhere. They had a special exhibit of weavings from Richard Landis and they are AMAZING color studies. He weaves with thread! This is a bad photo. The camera didn't want to focus through the glass but you can see some of his work here and listen to a great interview here.

In the next room was my nirvana, an exhibit on color and color theory! I could have taken and shared dozens of photos but decided to focus on taking it all in. On the left is a page from the Munsell Color System, the system I use for my Color Wheel fabrics. On the right is a page from a very rare book with 2592 natural dye recipes. 

The next day we decided to check out the Morgan Library that was only a few blocks from the hotel. It was a wonderful surprise for all of us. There was an exhibit on dragons represented in historical texts. Some of the illuminated books are over 1200 years old. There's also a great exhibit on handwriting with hundreds of original handwriting documents and signatures from historical figures including political, controversial and artistic people. These aren't contemporaries. Some of the documents go back hundreds of years. It's an amazing collection.

The library was built by Pierpont Morgan to house is vast collection of books, art and other artifacts. These photos are from some of the rooms in the library. The building itself is a work of art. 

It was a fun trip but now it's time to get back to work. I have a goal of binding the baby quilt this week and quilting a couple of veterans quilts.

Vacation is over and I'm back! 
We had a great time at the beach in Hatteras, NC with my family. I have 3 brothers and we are never all together at the same time. Having a beach vacation together seemed like a fine idea and it was. Mom had a great time having everyone together. We all enjoyed it. I even had a few friend visit. I think we had a total of 15 people there over the week. Some stayed all week and some for a few days.

​It looks like you had a great time too. We had lots of entries and it's time to announce the winners:

Day 1 - Cool colors - Kathy Sevebeck
Day 2 - Warm Colors - Judy Hudgins
Day 3 - Purples - Gene Black
Day 4 - Art Pack - Cherie Vidovich
Day 5 - Greens and Mistyfuse products - Leslie Griffel
Day 6 - Waste Fabrics - Cindy Pilkington
Bonus - Scarf - Shirley Bruner

I'm not quite back on the swing of things here. My friend, Laura, from England goes home tomorrow and Mom is here to go have cataract surgery today. I'll be back to sewing (or something) tomorrow. 

​I didn't take a lot of photos on vacation but here are a few.

There were so many flocks of these little sandpipers and I had fun watching them on our walks.

This gull loved the leftover shrimp that my brother was using as bait.

I got to go kayaking twice and on one trip we got to paddle around with a big flock of geese. That's my friend Lora ahead of me.

We had all kinds of weather. A few cloudy days, a couple of perfect days, one rainy day and one beautiful sunset. We took full advantage of all of it. We were on the oceanfront and I was able to catch this sunset over the sound from front of the house. 

Everything about the week was perfect. I didn't take one stitch. I just relaxed and enjoyed the week. I ready to get back to my routine now.

You may not have realized but I was actually away for a few days this past weekend. Mom and I went to Albuquerque this past weekend for my cousin's son's wedding. We were the only family able to go from Debra's side of the family and we were happy to be there to represent. The wedding was on Sunday at the beautiful Albuquerque Botanical Gardens but we had a few extra days to drive around and see this part of the country.

I didn't take a lot of photos, I was too busy looking around. 
The first full day we drove about 2.5 hours north to Taos. Our destination was Taos Pueblo. This Native American village of adobe homes is at least 1000 years old and people still live in them. The tour was fascinating.

The St. Jerome Chapel is "only" about 150 years old and is the newest building.

Next we drove a little NW of Taos to see the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. It's very cool!

Let me tell you this was very high up and it was a darned miracle that I made it to the middle of the bridge to get this photo. You can bet that I didn't let go of the railing.

After this I apparently put my camera away for the rest of the trip and just enjoyed being there. We drove back to Pilar along the western edge of the river and it was a spectacular drive. The next day we drove to Santa Fe and the highlight was the Georgia O'Keefe museum. We were surprised that she has a couple of connections to Virginia. Her very first teaching job was actually very close to where I grew up!

On the day of the wedding we visited the Albuquerque Aquarium and Botanical Gardens in the morning and Old Town in the afternoon. The highlight was a surprise 2-hour show of Flamenco dancing on the square in Old Town. It was a perfect way to end the sight-seeing part of our trip.

There's nothing about those 2 words in the header that have anything to do with each other but they are the 2 things that I have to talk about today.

The good thing about having a hand sewing project while watching football is that your time isn't a total waste. I didn't make much progress this weekend but at least I got this one flower done while both of my teams lost in spectacular fashion. This is the 4th border so I'm getting close to sewing these on and getting ready to applique the corners.

To be honest, I'm not getting much of anything done. Our friends from England are still here and we are having a blast having them around. Last week we took 4 days and drove to Niagara Falls. Nether of us had ever been and it seemed like a fine idea...and it was. We stayed on the Canadian side for the better views and it was the right thing to do. We stayed at this Airbnb property and it was the perfect walking distance from the falls and rapids.

The views really are better from the Canadian side and they've done a great job of mirroring the activities (mist ride, behind the falls, hike on the rapids) on both sides. The area near the falls is all neon, casinos and tourist traps. We spent one day exploring the falls and the second day touring Fort George, Niagara-On-The-Lake and a castle in Hamilton. I'll have more photos later this week but I was most excited to get my first ever fireworks photos and that's what I'm going to leave you with today.