Well I expect that you’ve all read the About Us page on the LIzzie B Cre8ive site, but here are a few things you might not know about the Lizzie B partners. Keep checking back often as I uncover more you may not know…
I asked both partners the following questions, check below for their answers.
How did you get started quilting?
Who/what inspires your designs?
If you weren’t designing quilt patterns, what would your dream job be?
What tips do you have for managing a family and still being able to find time to quilt?
When do you get most of your quilting done?
You have 3 very cool bags that you’ve designed, which one is your favorite and why?
If you could only keep one of your quilt designs to hang in your house, which would it be?
What do you like most about where you live?
How did you get started quilting?
Liz: I was living in France and an American woman down the street was giving a beginner’s sampler class. She made us piece everything by HAND! “Just like your Grandma learned,” she said. I quickly raised my hand and said, “My Grandma crochets….can I use my machine?”
Beth: I made my first quilt when I was a kid, maybe 10 years old. But I didn’t know it was quilting! We were just sewing patches together to make bedspreads 
But I really started to learn to QUILT about 15 years ago, when my third son was born. I needed something to keep me sane, I suppose!
Who/what inspires your designs?
Liz: EVERYTHING! If my mind is in “design mode” I seem to tune in to minute details everywhere that somehow trigger an idea that grows into a design. Or I think of all the things I love…hats, shoes, CHOCOLATE. And um, I’ll admit that chocolate is very inspirational in and of itself!
Beth: Hmmm, anything and everything! Sometimes its a person, if I am creating something with them in mind. Other times its just something I see, or colors I like. Sometimes I see a fabric that just calls out to me, and it needs something fabulous done with it! Liz and I work great together and it’s almost scary to see a design in progress, being born. We kind of feed off of one another (or maybe it’s the lack of sleep and overindulgence in chocolate, who knows!?)
If you weren’t designing quilt patterns, what would your dream job be?
Liz: Designing jewelry for Brighton Collectibles, or fabric or handbags for that matter! Or writing my next novel….
Beth: Gosh, that’s a hard one! I always wanted to stay home with my 4 boys, and was lucky to be able to do that. But before they were born, when I got my degree in business, I wanted to be in the corporate world too. Then I discovered quilting. An obsession. So to be able to stay home, have a studio upstairs in my home, and get to run a business from my home……… THAT’s the dream job!!
Liz: Read! And work at Brighton in my spare, spare time because it’s actually fun and very relaxing to be in such a creative environment.
Beth: Appliqué. Seriously. I get stressed if I have nothing to work on. OR, lay in my hammock and read a book, as long as it’s not 110 degrees in July!
What tips do you have for managing a family and still being able to find time to quilt?
Liz: Learn to appliqué! That way, your quilting is portable. Download your books instead of buying the paper format and keep the freezer stocked with Dream Dinners or Supper Supers or the like (and lots of Hot Pockets)!
Beth: Hot Pockets. Boys love ‘em. Or pizza— its on speed dial. No, seriously. I think my family respects my time in my studio— they are my biggest fans and supporters. They love that I can work, and still be at home. But for quilting— actually stitching— I think the answer is in what we do. A LOT of applique, hand-work. It’s portable, can go to baseball practice, or music lessons, or in the car. I get a lot done, here and there, inbetween all the complexities of life.
If you had an all expense paid vacation to anywhere in the world and you could take whoever you wanted, who would you take and where would you go?
Liz: I’d take my husband to Greece. It’s the one place on this planet that I’VE been and he HASN’T! Plus it’s warm and beautiful there and also happens to be the place I did my very first ever watercolor - which is framed and hanging in my house to this day.
Beth: Well, Liz and I have talked about our next company board meeting on some tropical island….. but oh, wait! Then WE would be paying the expenses, so that doesn’t work. But that is a dream trip. But I think right NOW, (if expenses were paid by someone else!), and I had all the time I could spare, I would take my husband and kids to South Africa, and spend 2 or 3 weeks seeing the country. Our oldest son is there, and will be home at the end of August, so we could go and see what he has been experiencing there for the last 2 years, and bring that boy back home ourselves!!
When do you get most of your quilting done?
Liz: My sons baseball games! Honestly, where else do you find yourself sitting for two hours straight? I have so many “baseball” quilts and not a single one has a baseball on it! Aside from that, I mostly quilt very late at night with a chick flick on in the background. Although I also like to watch TV series on DVD. Spring market quilts are being made while watching “Bones” season 2 at my house!
Beth: Designing and writing patterns, cutting out projects, picking fabrics—- ALL during the day. The actual stitching, relaxing part— in the evenings, in my jammies, in my comfy chair, watching my favorite shows on tivo….
You have 3 very cool bags that you’ve designed, which one is your favorite and why?
Liz: Hard to say! I love them all! But I love soooo many handbags. There is just no way to narrow it down! They all have different purposes I think. I love the
Anything Goes bag because I love the handles and easy access to all my stuff inside. The 
Easy-Breezy backsack is GREAT for travel or when you’re shopping and need two hands without a bothersome handbag hanging on one. And 
Charm Candy, though it’s new and I haven’t carried one around yet, I think I love it for all the pockets! I’m a sucker for pockets. One for the phone, one for the sunglasses, one for the chewing gum that you don’t want near anything else or you find all the rest of the contents infused with mint. All of them have one thing in common though (besides being darn cute!) and that is that you can fit a BOOK in every single one of ‘em. Very important in my opinion.
Beth: Hmm, maybe the backsack. Its easy to make, and GREAT for travel.
If you could only keep one of your quilt designs to hang in your house, which would it be?
Liz: Ah man! That’s like choosing a favorite child! Anyway, it depends on the time of year and which part of the house it’s to hang in. Although Chocolate is timeless…..
Beth: “Will You Remember Me”
, which is one of our memory quilts using photos on fabric. I used photos from all 4 of my boys, when they were little. So that is the one that I am dying to get to eventually hang somewhere in my house! But I also our new pattern, “Dream a Little Dream”…. I want to finish one for myself and hang that somewhere too. So can I pick 2 quilts for my answer??
What do you like most about where you live?
Liz: I have a sister who lives 5 minutes away! And parents too. (not in the same house though, thank goodness!)
Beth: That’s easy!! The winters
