I have been sewing!

Alright, so it was mainly because I was sewing along with my pattern testers, but I actually got some sewing done. It took me about 2 weeks to get all the blocks made and the top put together. This weekend I will be visiting with a friend who has a lovely large table we can use to baste the beast. Then I can tackle the machine quilting.
 I did make a few mistakes along the way. Cannot even follow my own directions! My block #9 is facing the wrong way. I forgot I had pre-reversed the templates in the pattern sheet. Then I got excited about sewing the blocks onto each other and forgot to trim back the long trio sets of owls. I normally cut my applique bases a tad large to cover any distortion from the actual sewing of the applique. That mistake made the owls on those blocks slightly off center. While these are just imperfections only I will notice, I still kick myself for not going slower.

 So here is a picture of my top. Jamie had laid claim to the quilt while it was still in the designing stages, she loves owls. Because of that my border colors do not match the pattern. I tried to pull in a bit of red / rust so it would not clash as horribly with her bedroom. It will not surprise me at all if she doesn't decide to redecorate her room again this summer.

What's on my Desk

Here is a sneak peek of the new BoM heading to the testers today.

EQStitch

In today’s newsletter from Electric Quilt - http://electricquilt.com/newsletters/january-2013/

 They announced their new product Electric Stitch. And best of all I got the “go ahead” to start talking about it!!!

For the past year I have been one of the beta testers, and got to create some embroidery designs to be included into the software. EQStitch is going to be an add on, or plug-in for Electric Quilt 7. You will be able to take any of the designs you use or create and convert them instantly to embroidery designs! And it is SO EASY to use. Remember when I bought my embroidery machine? The Brother SE400? That was specifically so I could actually sew what I was doing in the beta testing. And I figured out how to do it without ANY headaches or tears. Alright, I am no novice to designing with EQ7, but I was delightfully  impressed with how seamless the transition was to designing with EQStitch.

 Yes! I am very excited about this new product. Not just for myself but for those of you with embroidery machines. Over the course of the year I am going to be able to offer FatCat Patterns quilt patterns as embroidery files you can use right on your own machines!!!

 If you own EQ7 – you will be able to create and convert to embroidery designs.

 If you own an embroidery machine – you will be able to use designs created by others.

2013 is going to be so much fun.

Heirloom Table

Awhile back Jamie and I were gifted with newspaper clippings that her great grandmother Verna had saved. They were of quilt patterns offered in the Kansas Star newspaper. The clippings were not in the best preserved state, but we wanted to use them in a manner that we could enjoy daily. We considered a wall display, but wall space here is limited. We thought about something for Jamie's room, but then she changed her decor. Finally we decided on making this coffee table. It took some looking, but we finally found a nice table at the thrift store. Then used Mod Podge to create what you see here. The aged yellow newsprint mellowed in the process. It goes rather well with the rest of our living room. And we get to enjoy it every day! All here are very pleased with the results. 
 Look! Jamie is even using a coaster, lol. No helping the bare feet though.
 You can see in the close up picture that the edges are  rough and distressed. We wanted a shabby chic look, so ran over them with the sander before the final clear poly coating.
All in all a very fun project.