Weekend Visit from Mum!

A few weekends ago, my Mum came up for a 2-day visit. We spent most of the first day relaxing at a local spa and enjoying dinner in Portsmouth.
I'm sorry about the delay but this post is picture heavy and trying to get everything in order and not completely on top of themselves was quite a challenge!

MMmmm! facials, mani-pedi's, I had a heavenly neck and shoulder massage before fun blow-outs at the Adagio Spa in Barrington.

For dinner, we ate at Poco's on their outside patio by the water. Delish!

This is one of my favorite shops in Portsmouth! They have wonderful hats, accessories and little sparklies :-)

We did enjoy some fun hat-shopping as well as other window shopping before heading home for the night. We had a big day planned for Sunday: The Quilt Show in Manchester!


As you can see, most of the quilts are more artwork than a blanket for a bed. This above swan quilt is from Japan.
A close-up so you can see the level of detail in this movie-travel inspired quilt.

We walked through two large halls at the Marriot in Manchester, filled with nothing but quilts from around the world - and a few vendors filled the middle aisles.

This design was quilted and then hand painted. It's all one piece of fabric! I've also included a close up so you can see how the dye went down into the stitches and help create the water-colored effect.

I didn't take photos of everything. We didn't really think we could take photos at all but a lot of people were, so these were sort-of snuck using my camera phone. It was truly like walking through a museum filled with art.

We spent 4 hours just walking and looking at all the quilts and displays. It was overwhelming!
At the end of the show, we realized we hadn't eaten anything since breakfast! So we walked over a block and ate some yummy pizza at the Portland Pie Company before heading out into the drizzly afternoon.

All in all it was a wonderful weekend - mostly relaxing thanks to the Spa trip - and a nice change of pace, since usually when Mum comes up to visit we are working on painting rooms or making curtains - ie something house related!!