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...