July 11th is a special day, Rally Day, Quilts and some blocks to show

Today is July 11th. It is a special day. Ok, it's 7-11 day and you get free slurpees all day but besides that...I met my honey 32 years ago today. We always play a game to see who remembers first. My hubby said it first this year about 5 o'clock this morning when I had to get out of bed. I have not felt good today and I got sick this morning first thing. What a way to start the day, huh....Anyway, he was sweet and gave me a lovely little card too. He didn't give it to me then, he waited til later! I never get him a card for this and he always kids me about that. One of these days, I'm going to surprise him and get him a card. I always tell him, it's not our real anniversary, I don't get you a card for this, but he always still wants one.



Now, as far as yesterday goes, Rally Day was wonderful. The guest speaker was Cynthia England and her quilts were unbelievable and she was a hoot too. She is very entertaining and energetic and is a wonderful speaker. She does some amazing pictorial quilts. She seemed to be real down to earth and friendly too. I never thought I wanted to do any quilts like this until I heard her talk. She made it sound easy. I guess that's what they are supposed to do, right? So, they can sell their patterns and books but I really believed her, so, I bought her book. I might try my hand at this. Nothing major, maybe just a little wallhanging. I'm putting this on my list of future things I want to try....



She did say that it's better to see a demo on this and she has some on her website with some free patterns...Here's her site, if you want to check into it. http://www.englanddesign.com

There were over 450 people at Rally Day. I do not know how many guilds were represented. Some of the guilds were selling raffle tickets for their quilts and had them on display. I guess there were about 20 quilts on display for that. All of them were beautiful. I did not take pictures of all of them because there were too many people in the way. I think I bought tickets for nearly all of them too. You never know when you might be lucky. Here's a few pics of the two quilts I could get pictures of...




A Texas Quilt, all of these blocks were made by members for a challenge. I don't know if any of these were originals or not but it was a lovely quilt.
Click on it and you can see it closer. The little lady at the right hand side says something like, There's a new sheriff in town...very cute.
Of course, there's armadillos, bluebonnets, boots, cowboy hats, oil derricks, horses, cactus, the yellow rose,the Texas Flag, the Alamo, more armadillos on this quilt, so it truly is a Texas quilt.




Close ups of some of the blocks






I wish I could have taken pictures of all of them but there was no way. They were on display in a hallway on both sides. The hallway was about 12 foot across and when everybody was in the hallway, you could barely pass through.

The church where we met was wonderful. We have been at this same location for three years that I know of and it is great. Lots of room to move around in except when everyone is let out...

Everyone was given a goody bag and some people won door prizes. I was lucky and won a door prize. Here's what was in my goody bag.
Some fat quarters, a pattern, a pencil, some sticky notes, a little needle case, a name tag for totes, a little ruler and a tape measure. It was a nice little goodie bag. They give us goody bags each year. Everyone gets one and that way if you don't win a door prize, you still get something. Oh, did I mention that the Rally Day is free. That's right, if you are a member of a guild that is a member of TAQG, you get in free. If you are not a member, the cost is $20.00. Lunches are available for purchase at the guild meetings. You have to pay for these a month ahead to get them. I forgot and had to bring my own lunch. This is a great thing to go to and it is well worth guild membership just to be able to go to this.



Here's the doorprize I won: 3 patterns, 1 included fabric too. 3 fat quarters and two pieced of flannel kitty fabric. I will keep one of these and give the others to my guild to give away. I'm going to keep the one that had fabric. It has the two little kitties on the front. It's a small wallhanging. I thought I might make it and give it to the guild for our mini auction next year. Anyway, it was fun to win a doorprize too.



I went with two of my friends and we saw alot of our other friends there too. I enjoy going to this because this is one place I see friends I haven't seen all year. You don't get alot of time to visit but sometimes it's enough to catch up a little and make plans to have lunch together later. I love Rally Day!

I got home and was able to sew a little bit too. I finished my block. The Marti Michell block I was going to work on Friday night...here it is:


Here's the other one I told you about. The big Broken Dishes block:



Here's the sweet pattern that Cornfield Quilter sent me: It's a country star...This is on my do it soon list. thanks again, Carol!



I also made my blocks 9 and 10 of the Jelly Roll Quilt Along. Here they are:

Block 9:



Block 10


Now, to watch some TV and tat a little. Til next time, happy sewing...

More Marti Michell blocks, a surprise gift and Quilt Rally Day tomorrow.

I worked on two more of my blocks last night. I got one completely finished and it's called Broken Dishes. This is the biggest broken dishes block I have ever made! I worked on the other block and was on the last few pieces and was getting ready to put it all together and noticed I had sewn the outside pieces together wrong. I turned off my machine, grabbed Mr. Ripper and the pieces and came downstairs to unsew. It was quitting time for me. I unsewed the pieces and they are now ready to be sewn properly and the block finished. I try not to ever leave an error in my sewing when I stop. I try to always unsew it and sew it properly or get it ready to be sewn the next time I start. That way I'm not ending on a bad note and I won't forget to correct it when I start sewing again. These blocks are easy blocks with the Marti Michell templates but there are alot of pieces so they take awhile to do...I'll take pics later and today and show you my finished blocks.

I received a nice little gift in the mail yesterday too. Cornfield Quilter sent me a little surprise gift. It was a quilt pattern and it has a star on it. My favorite thing! She sent me this because I'm such a nice person...Actually, that's true, but she sent me this little surprise because I signed up to follow her blog and I was her 100th follower. Thank you so much, I will enjoy this little pattern!

Tomorrow is TAQG Rally Day. For those of you out there that do not live it the big state of Texas...TAQG stands for Texas Association of Quilt Guilds and is an organization made up of Texas Quilt Guilds. These guilds get together once a year in July and have a meeting with a national guest speaker and play all day long. This year's speaker is Cynthia England. She is amazing and I am really looking forward to this. Here's her website. http://www.englanddesign.com. If you haven't seen her work, go check out her site and you will see some of her work. Pictures do not do these beautiful quilts justice. They are so wonderful in person. I first saw her work several years ago when she won Best of Show at the Dallas Quilt Show and I have paid attention ever since. One of these days, I'll do something with her methods.

My electricity just came back on from a spectacular lighting storm and I have been sitting in the dark for 2 hours. I didn't do any sewing or anything tonight. I'll finish my block tomorrow night and show them to you then. Take care and have a great weekend.

TAQG Rally Day (Texas Assoc. of Quilt Guilds)

I went Saturday to the TAQG Rally Day. This year's speaker was J. Michelle Watts....She was great! I don't know what the exact count was of people that attended but I would guess about 500. I am so bad with guessing though, it might have been more. It was a wonderful day. She had a trunk show of her quilts in the morning time and her wearable arts in the afternoon. She is from Roswell, N Mexico and she focuses on the Southwest. She also now has her own line of fabric thru Moda...If you ever get a chance to hear her or see her work, it is well worth the time.

If you get a chance to go to Rally Day, go for it. It was so much fun. The food was good too. The food was catered by Applebees and they did a good job. I don't know when or where Rally Day is next year but will let you know...Til next time.