Kings and Things

Ben's Spring Break began this week. He originally was going to be out of town for 9 days for his job, but their trip got cancelled so he didn't have to leave me! I thought it would be fun for us to take a trip, but I was just excited he wouldn't be gone. Monday he told me he had a surprise for me on Friday. I figured dinner and a movie, since that's usually about all our dates are. I came home Friday after work to find

The funny thing is I couldn't figure out what he meant! I knew the picture was of the main guy from the Twilight movies, but I couldn't remember his name. "Pack for the...King Vampire? King of Twilight? King...Bloodsucker?" Finally Ben told me to remember his name...which took a while. "The King Edward!"
The King Edward Hotel was built in 1923 but went out of business and sat abandoned and forlorn for about 40 years. It was dilapidated and home to the homeless and pigeons. My whole life the downtown Jackson skyline included the HOTEL KING EDWARD sign atop the empty building.

In 2009 it finally reopened its doors again - renovated, modern, and beautiful. Sadly, it's not officially the King Edward anymore since Hilton bought it out, and so the familiar sign is no longer there, but the building was restored to the original designs and updated to accommodate the modern-day hotel-goer. We've been wanting to go since it reopened.
So we had a vacation in town - went out to eat, spent the night at the hotel, enjoyed sleeping in and relaxing. It was awesome. Super Hubby strikes again.

And on the sewing front, remember that shirt I said I was making without a pattern?

Here we are! A Caitlin original. You know, it's not perfect -- it has all the same kind of flaws the stuff I make always has -- but I really like it. Maybe because it's my own, maybe because it actually turned out like the picture in my head.

Close-up of the center detailing

Still haven't saved enough money for that fabric I want. So it's on to the next project with the scraps lying around. Perhaps I'll have some strokes of genius, and maybe that Etsy store will be up soon.