Appleton Dance

I made this traditional Swedish Heart to hold a tiny Christmas present. It measures almost 4.5-inches square and was made using two 2.5 x 8 inch pieces of felt -- one white, one red. I refreshed my memory of how to make the Swedish heart using the book Christmas Customs: Handcrafted Ornaments published by Creative Publishing International of Minnetonka, MN in 2001. The book appears to be out of print, but it is available for the cost of shipping from sellers on Amazon. There are also directions online as Woven Heart Basket on First Palette: Your step-by-step guide to kids' crafts. This site gives a good guide on the actual weaving process, which is a little tricky until you have practiced a few times. To create your heart, you may use: paper; or fabric stiffened with iron-on interfacing, or two pieces of fabric adhered with a bonding medium like Stitch Witchery; or any kind of felt, as I did. Basically, you cut two rectangles in a three to one proportion, fold the rectangl...

Newly painted family room in Behr's Mojave Gold I LOVE my new family room! I had been using my family room as a working office for fifteen years and it was full of office equipment and files. After I retired, Alisa helped me get rid of a lot of the clutter and office equipment, but the room was still full of personal files, bills, junk, and one huge chaise longe. And lately, the chili pepper red walls had begun to wear on me. So, on Thanksgiving Day when Ben said they were getting rid of a couch, I asked for it to use in my family room and I asked Alisa to help me paint. They both said yes, and the transformation of my family room began. I took everything out of the room, and Sandy and Alisa and I painted with two coats of Behr's Primium Plus Ultra Interior Matte  paint in the Mojave Gold color  that weekend. We only needed one gallon.  To try out colors, the sales lady at Home Depot suggested  Sure Swatch  tacky film that you paint and stick...

I attended the American Sewing Expo, Inc. in Novi last month and one of the take-away projects was a very cute cell-phone pouch that uses a clever construction method that I found interesting. I’ve made several of the pouches for relatives and decided to make a few for holiday gifts for friends. The project was made at the Janome overlock site at the expo, but I have been unable to find the pattern online, so I have introduced my own ammendments, rewritten the instructions and taken photos of my own process for this post. Since I’m going to make many pouches, the first thing I decided to do is make-up a kit for each pouch. Here are the contents of each kit. ( Note: I will add more photos, but I decided to put up the directions with incomplete photos for now. LT) Each kit includes: Materials Five (or six) pieces of fabric each 4.5 x 9 inches: One pouch front (or two pieces to make two-tone front using back fabric, or another coordinate or contrast fabric One pouch...

Pyramid Pouch I recently wanted to make a gift bag for some Troll beads I gave to Alisa for her birthday and thought of the Pyramid Pouch I posted in this blog several years ago . When I went to the post I discovered that I had linked to a source for the description of how to make the pouch, but the directions were not very clear, so I thought I’d do the how-to with photos for this blog to make assembly easier. You can make the pouch in whatever size you like, as long as you begin with a piece of fabric twice as long as it is wide and with a zipper that is as long as your fabric width. For example, if your fabric measures 8 x 4 inches, you need a zipper that is 4 inches long. The seaming is very simple, but hard to describe. The pouch has only three seams: bottom, side, and zipper installation.   I’ve done my best to describe the process below, but you may wish to practice with a piece of paper and tape a few times to get the overall picture before beginning to seam...

Handi-book for giftcard presentation There are lots of cute paper books that you can make, but here is one that is fast and easy to fold without needing a lot of knowledge about paper folding. This one uses clear or decorative tape to form the book and hook and loop dots to keep it closed. I got the inspiration for this folded paper book from Whimsey Square Quilts’ Tea Book directions for making a fabric envelope of pockets to hold tea. I thought the little book of four pockets would be perfect for gift-card presentation to include a card or two, a handwritten note or poem, and a small item that coordinates with the gift card, such as a teabag with a card from a tea shop, or a book of needles with a card from a fabric store. You can choose paper or decorate your paper to coordinate with the gift idea. Note: typing paper or butcher paper works better than wrapping paper which tends to be too flimsy. Materials Paper 11 x 17 inches Clear or decorative tape to coordinate w...