I painted a button!

Yay me! I haven't painted a button by myself until now. I did some larger mother of pearl shapes, but this is an actual vintage button from a group I bought on Ebay a couple of years ago. I had two classes with Gerry Krueger at the CQ retreats, so a big thank you goes out to her.

This is the little haunted house for my witch hat, and the button is less than 1 1/4" across. There's a bit of glare on the lower side, but believe me this scan was much better than trying to take a photo with the camera; that didn't work at all!

Fall block swap

I am participating in a block swap on CQ for Newbies. The theme is fall or Halloween, and originally I planned to do a more Halloweenish block, with lots of honking orange and purple and spiders. For some reason that's not the way the muse led me.

I found this silkie I'd printed a year or more ago, and liked the soft golds so much I echoed those colors in the rest of the piecing. Then I "grew" a pine tree to overlap the scene.

I still think purple and lavender are wonderful fall colors (think asters and grapes), so that became an accent color in silk ribbon, threads, and butterflies. And it just wouldn't be fall without some honking orange, so the aster centers and the tiny butterfly.
Anyway, even though it's not what I originally envisioned, it's off to the swap hostess to make its way to a new home!