Appleton Dance

Marilyn Knepp's Spellbound tote made with Knepp's unique fabric created at  design-your-own-fabric site, Spoonflower. (Front panel shown) Ann Arbor quilt artist Marilyn Knepp shared her latest project -- a totebag promoting her daughter's tech firm, SpellBound Books -- with fellow members of the Greater Ann Arbor Quilt Guild on Jan. 16, 2016. Knepp used features of the SpellBound logo to create an original fabric from the design-your-own-fabric website, Spoonflower . She also created a coordinating, striped fabric for the totebag. Knepp said: This was my first foray into Spoonflowering and now I can think of many reasons why I'll be making more -- even though I am not a fabric designer. In addition to admiring my bag, I hope your readers will look at the Spellbound website (address conveniently highlighted on the tote bag), and consider Spellbound's  Indiegogo Campaign to fund a pilot project at Mott Hospital. Reverse side of Marilyn Knepp's S...

Screenshot of GAAQG's new website designed by Hoyden Creative Group, live Jan15, 2016. Unveiling the brand new Greater Ann Arbor Quilt Guild website  by guild president Sonja Hagen was the highlight of Saturday's bi-monthly, quilt-day meeting. The new site, created by marketing firm Hoyden Creative Group based in Adrian, Michigan, went live Friday night, Jan. 15, 2016. Hagen and the new webmaster Mary Beth Donovan, along with blogger Kathy Schmidt and several members of the website team have been working for months with Hoyden to create an up-to-date, interactive site. "Our goal was to build something that would serve as a valuable resource to our members and the wider community," Hagen said. They hit the bullseye; check it out! Quilt day speaker, Frieda Anderson Fiber artist Frieda Anderson   presented a lecture on the topic of "Free motion quilting" and gave some tips that I am going to try: 1. Use an open-toed, hopping foot instead ...

Mini-house, pattern by Missouri Star Quilt Co. Runner created by L. Theil 2016. I love the look of a house block, but most I've seen seem complex and more suited for paper piecing than traditional piecing, so I was intrigued by this simple little house block demonstrated by Jenny Doan on the Missouri Star Quilt Company channel on YouTube. Doan uses raw-edge applique for the door and windows and cuts the roof pieces using a half-hexigon template. The only tricky part of the piecing is matching the roof half hexigon to the roof-background half-hexigon. If your seams are not accurate, the roofs -- which are made in a long row separate from the houses -- may not fit their houses nicely. Using a quarter-inch seaming foot can help with this difficulty. Learning to match those hexi angles neatly comes with experience. Quarter-inch seam foot with guide edge for Janome sewing machines Doan offers videos on how to make this simple house block in two different sizes: a larg...