Owl Quilt

Here's my latest project. My daughter named it "Owl Night" and it is hanging in her room. That is what happens when you ask a 4 yr. old for advice on hanging Mommy's creations... they all end up in her room. :)

I mostly follwed the directons in the Aug/Sept 08 article "Being Pet-ty Quilted Pet Portraits" in Quilting Arts Magazine. I modified it a little;but, followed it for the most part.

Now of course this owl is not a pet. It is done from a picture of an owl statue that we have in a part of our garden we call "The Owl Nook". I have all kinds of little owl statues tucked away in that corner.

At night, when I'm lying awake unable to sleep for various reasons, I can hear the screech owls that live in our yard (these are real owls now, not the statues!). We have other owls that come through our yard on occaison;but, the little screechies have been around for years having fuzzy little owlets.

So here's my tribute to them, a fuzzy little purple owl that now watches over my daughter as she sleeps. :) Beth

Green and Purple Etsy Mom Treasury

Yea! One of my ATC's is featured in this EtsyMom treasury...

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=9388

If you would like to find other great items by other moms on Etsy just search "Etsy Mom Team". Also the Etsy Mom Team has its own blog in case you would like to join the team...

http://etsymom.blogspot.com/

Patchwork Treasury on Etsy

One of my Sapphire Dream ATC's is featured in a treasury on Etsy along with many other lovely blue patchwork items. Check it out....
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=6718

Lucky Number 7 Piece of Toast

This is the piece of toast that was served to us at breakfast today! Pretty freaky! It really has a number 7 on it! I'm selling it on eBay just out of curiosity to see if someone will actually buy it...

Here's the listing if you want to check on it during the week to see if it's going to sell...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Lucky-and-or-Holy-Number-7-Piece-of-Toast-Bread-OOAK_W0QQitemZ320296313966QQihZ011QQcategoryZ1469QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


This has been a fun highlight of a week that has been spent watching hurricanes in the Gulf with my family who is evacuated here from Gustav and is waiting to see where Ike goes before heading home to New Orleans. If the piece of toast sells, I will donate the money to hurricane recovery efforts.

Apple Printing-Back to School

My daughter and I tried our hands at apple printing the other day. Etsy Texas Crafters had a design challenge this past Monday and one of the themes was Back to School. Apples seemed to be a good fit. I did some printing along with my daughter and then even used my new embellisher to needle felt the finished quilted piece. I'm really quite pleased with the resulting mini-quilt. It is listed in my etsy shop, bybethstudio.

Here's my daughter's hands loading the apple with paint...

We just used regular acrylic panit on cotton fabric. Here's the printing in progress (this is my side of the fabric)...

Here's the free-style painting that my daughter did along with the apple printing...

She has titled her fabric "Butterfly Garden". I will soon quilt and embellish her piece as well and will post a picture of the finished piece. Claire LOVES my sewing machine and embellisher so I will have her help me with that part too.

We also saved the apple halves and are going to print with different colors on different fabrics later in the week. I'll post the results of that printing session, too.

Welcome Back to School!

Embellisher Practice Samples

Well with the encouragement of my quilting buddy, Cindy, I got over the fear of screwing up my new machine and dove right in. I have started practicing on fleece and have tried a variety of items as embellishment such as , fleece yarn, regular "fuzzy" yarn, metallic yarn, yarn woven with threads and just fleece pieces. We were both impressed by how well the 2 items are felted together into a very solid new creation.

Here is the front of my fleece sample strip....

And here is the back.....
Now that I've over come my initial trepidation, I'm really having fun.

I'll post more later as I continue to experiment with my new toy!!!

My Newest Toy

Well, there she is...my latest toy, a Baby Lock Embellisher. I got a steal on the EMB7 from a sweet lady in Minnesota.

It should arrive here this week.

After a long while of googling, searching blogs, calling local quilt stores and fantasizing, I'm eagerly anticipating its arrival.

After feeling like I was involved in new car-like negotiations with a local quilting store (amazing how a price can drop by $400 seemingly overnight???, good thing I didn't jump at the expensive-ass first price...who are they kidding here?) I found this brand new, never opened one on Craig's List and the seller is a fellow etsy person (etsian?). So it has 7 needles instead of the 12 of the new model...that's ok! I really don't even know what to do with the 7 needles it has. I'm sure I'll have fun learning!

So, I made a new etsy friend and got a cool new machine at a great price.

Keep checking back for pictures of my first attempts at creating things with my new baby. YEA!!!

Any input on good sites and blogs with project ideas and how-to's is appreciated. :)