Thanks Dallas, it was a blast!

Well, we made it to Dallas for the quilt show and we had an amazing time!!  My niece, Johnna, went with me and boy is she good help.  It's nice to have someone who can jump up on a table or stool to hang things up high!  She is also really good at making the booth look cute (though she said I need to get some doilys - lol).  Here she is hanging our stars made from yardsticks (this is after she hopped up there and hung the quilts!)

 We had a nice big 10' x 20' booth - here it is after we finished setting up, and before the chaos began...

 Kind of hard to see it all, but we had lots of little ruler boxes, pin cushions, tons of stars, scissors and socks.  And of course plenty of paper pieced jewelry.  We also sold honey and bees wax (hubby raises bees).

 If you enlarge the picture hopefully you can see the boxes better. I just bought the white stand to put them in at Hobby Lobby - it worked perfectly.

The show opened on Friday and ran through Sunday.  Friday was CRAZY!!!  We were swamped with customers and it was awesome!  The time just flew by.  Johnna was in charge of the cash register and I ran around and talked to people and tried to keep things filled up.  I met so many people that I only knew from blogland, Instagram, etc - so much fun.  Thanks so much to everyone who came and introduced yourself.  There were several people who have been in our Charming program too - so great to be able to put a face to the name.

Saturday and Sunday were not as busy, but still busy enough that I did not have time to walk around and look at the other vendors or the quilts!  I can't believe that I didn't buy a single thing! Although, I had taken a few wool applique blocks to work on and decided on Sunday that I could stitch and talk to customers at the same time (you didn't think I was that coordinated, did you?).  So I got out my block and my Valdani, and guess what?  No needles!  Well, lucky for me I was at a quilt show with a bazillion vendors, so I went 2 booths down to Sew Graceful Quilting and they were kind enough to give me a pack.  Funny thing is, I was working on a block that I got from them as a BOM.  I didn't get a ton of stitching done, but some is better than none. Johnna was watching me and decided she wanted to try it, so she put a few stitches in as well.  I hope to make a quilter out of her some day.

I hate that I don't have any more pictures to share from the show - next time I will know to get there even earlier each day and check out the vendors and the quilts!  I will say that the quilts that I could see on the way in and out were really beautiful - lots of talent in Texas for sure.

We stayed with my cousin and his family, so that made the trip even more special.  He has lived in TX for over 20 years and this is the first time I've been there.  He helped us unload all of our stuff on Thursday, then had to go to work. He also helped us in the booth on Saturday and Sunday.  It was so fun to spend time with all of them - we went to several great restaurants and had a few quiet (not sure it was really quiet, with all of us!) evenings at home too.  On Monday we went to the George W. Bush Presidential library.  That was really interesting.  I loved seeing some of the lavish gifts that were given from various people and countries.  Our favorite was a huge stuffed lion.  Really?  Here...would you like this lion?  I have an extra just laying around.  Johnna and I chuckled about that for a day or two.  There is a section that is a 911 memorial, including some twisted iron from one of the buildings.  It was one of my favorite parts of it all, but very sad. Once again, I didn't take many pictures, but here are a couple...

 After that we stopped at Gas Monkey - I had never heard of it but Johnna was excited!  We didn't get to see much, as they were taping a show when we were there so a lot of it was blocked off. We checked out the gift shop and took a picture of my cute little niece with the Swag Van.

Not only did I not get pictures of the quilt show, I didn't get any of my cousin and his family!  What the heck was I thinking?  The only one I have is this...my cousin and I - we were outside of Babe's waiting for a table.  

We left bright and early Tuesday morning, and made it home almost 13 hours later.  I was ready to be out of the van and in my bed!  It was so much fun to be at the show and to hang out with family, but I missed my hubby and kitties!

If you came to the show and said hi...thank you!  It was a blast and we plan on making this an annual trip!