Appleton Dance

 by Alisa Shea Henderson's "Broken Bars" improv piecing by Alisa, quilted by KootsiQuilting I saw the "Broken Bars" design by Shea Henderson in the Missouri Star Mod Block magazine vol1, issue 1 in 2016, and I loved it. I thought it was modern and cool and just perfect for my house. I purchased the exact fabric -- a fat-quarter bundle of Kona solids in"Patchwork City Winter Palette" by Elizabeth Hartman for Robert Kaufman that September and then, nothing! The bundles are no longer available but the colors in the pack are all Kona solids:  violet, berry, hibiscus, storm, celestial, teal blue, cyan, breakers, pool, azure, jade green, emerald, glacier, spruce, pesto, avocado, bonsai, wasabi, aloe, fog, shadow, medium grey, graphite, coal, and charcoal. At some point I point I pulled out the pattern and the fabric and cut all the random width strips and then I lost focus again. I think the scrappy, improvisational style of the design was a little overwhel...

 By Alisa I saw an adorable vintage Christmas bulb felt ornament on Instagram and loved it! A search online unearthed a pattern and tutorial from Oh Yay Studio -- along with a lot of other cute things. I loved the colors in the Oh Yay version, but I wanted to do something a bit more traditional, which required me to search for a picture of the classic Christmas bulb for reference.   I had wool felt on hand for a couple of the colors but I had to order the green and blue from Benzie Design on Etsy. They have lots of lovely colors and very quick shipping! I used the Oh Yay template for the bulb; I cut the pattern out of printer paper, leaving the black border, and laminated the pattern with packing tape. I prepped a bunch of felt rectangles and cut the bulbs two at a time, using a clip to hold the felt and template together.  I kept the felt pairs together using a clip until it was time to sew. Once all the bulbs were cut, I sewed them on my machine starting about halfwa...

by Linda Theil Scrappy Log Cabin quilt block by Linda Theil  Next month the Greater Ann Arbor Quilt Guild will host a virtual quilt-along to make quilts for the SafeHouse Center womens' shelter in Ann Arbor, Michigan. One of the suggested blocks to make at the event is a Scrappy Log Cabin suggested by GAAQG member and artist Mary Bajcz. I love the Log Cabin block design and decided to get a head start on next month's event by organizing my materials and develping a process for making my Scrappy Log Cabin blocks. I began by watching Mary's YouTube video: "Scrap Quilt Strategy: The Log Cabin Technique" , and many others available on the topic. What a variety of approaches!   I'm not much of an improvisor and this is the first time I've tried the scrappy approach to quilt making. So It was quite an adventure for me. I pulled out my scrap bin and began sorting for lights and darks. After looking at many videos, I decided to work with a central square of 2.5-i...

by Alisa My littlest niece headed to her first day of preschool this week. When we were talking about her going to school a few weeks ago she told me, "But I don't know my letters!". I assured her that they would teach her the alphabet and there was nothing to worry about. But she was clearly concerned, so when I saw this Missouri Star fabric letters tutorial on YouTube I knew I had to make them. Luckily I had all of the supplies in my stash: a white Kona solids charm pack for the letter fronts, blue Kona yardage in Harbor for the back and  Bosal fusible foam stabilizer . My Bosal was double-sided fusible, rather the recommended single-sided fusible; but it worked fine.   I also had a new set of Pilot FriXion erasable pens that I hadn't tried out yet for fabric marking.  They were amazing --  easy to write with, and disappeared at the touch of the iron. I cut 6-inch strips from the backing and the fusible foam and ironed them together from the fabric side. ...

by Linda Theil Spencer-Ogg cosmetics pod 85% full size in Mook Fabrics PUL/cherry pie white I am a big fan of the "Spencer Ogg Cosmetics Pouch"  so when I wanted to try making reusable snack bags from the food-grade, polyurethane laminated fabric (PUL) I ordered from fabric dot com  last week, I defaulted to my favorite single-piece, unlined, zippered-pouch pattern by Diane Spencer-Ogg . After experimenting, I came up with a satisfactory snack pod with the following specs and adaptations: The snack pods are made of a single layer of PUL fabric without interlining. To make a sandwich-sized snack pod of 5x5-inches finished, I reproduced the Spencer-Ogg pattern to 85-percent of the original pattern size. The pattern piece is 9x10.5-inches. Although the pattern calls for boxing at both top and bottom of the pod, I eliminated the cut-outs for the boxing at the top of the pattern and sewed the side seams with boxing only at the bottom. I used three-inch lengths of one-inch-wide gro...

by Linda Theil Who knew that a beautifully designed cross-body bag could be important occupational-therapy equipment for anyone with only one functional arm! When my cousin broke her arm and reached out for suggestions about how to navigate daily life with only one hand, the first thing I found on the Internet was advice to use a cross-body bag instead of a handbag, allowing your body to act as carrier and stabilizer instead of a nonfunctional hand/arm. What a great idea! The advice seems obvious since the main benefit of a cross-body bag is to allow  hands free while shopping, but it never occurred to me that a cross-body bag could be invaluable to anyone with limited use or mobility of one arm. That's a lot of people! Diane Spencer Ogg's "Amplector" cross-body pattern is perfect for this use. She designed the bag specifically to be small, light, unobtrusive, and super-comfortable to wear.  Now that I know how useful they can be, I think cross-body bags should be st...

 by Linda Theil I started school in 1953 in Miss Stump's morning kindergarten class at Neville School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I was ashamed of my knobby knees, scared of the Bad Chair, and delighted in making silver bells with foil that sealed the pint bottles of our daily milk ration.  Every year my mom bought me a new pencil box to start the school year. I loved my pencil box with its specialized compartments and equipment. Although I never understood the purpose of the colored plastic protractor with its tiny gradations, I delighted in the #2 Eberhard Fabers, Prismacolor pencils, Crayolas, Westcott ruler, Pink Pearl eraser, pencil sharpener, and compass. I was ready for school! That's why I was so happy when the local intermediate school district began their  "Backpacks for Kids" project -- giving Livingston County, MI students backpacks full of school supplies. Robin Schutz of Great Start Livingston said: "LESA staff started this project in 2002 with ju...