Appleton Dance

 by Alisa My nephew turned ten-years-old earlier this year. He's adorable and amazing and I knew he was learning to play chess, so when I saw instructions  to make a chess set in the May 2021 Martha Stewart Living magazine I knew it was the perfect bday gift. The online instructions don't include what I think is the best part of the set -- the combo storage box/board. You make the chessboard/storage box from a 13" x 13" x 4" sliding lid maple box from Tilnic Box on Etsy and a 12" chess board stencil from The Stencilsmith online. Martha suggested spray painting the board, but I used acrylic paint and a stencil brush instead. I should have sealed the wood before stenciling, but I tell myself the bleeding at the edges shows the work that went into painting the design. I had already purchased all the blocks -- there are a lot -- suggested in the Martha Stewart instructions, so I got to work on creating the Chess pieces. I took some liberties with the instruct...

by Linda Theil Steven, I am giving you this quilt because every stitch represents a step in your journey to become a board-certified, healthcare professional. This quilt is composed of blocks in the traditional log-cabin quilt block design, consisting of fabric pieces spiraling out from a central square that represents the heart, the hearth, the essential. Although the log-cabin design is traditional, the execution is modern because fabrics are chosen from cotton pieces the maker has on hand. The pieces for your quilt were gathered in a color palette of red, white, and green, accented with gold. Each block was composed according to the maker's esthetic at the time of its creation. For more information on this process, see AppletonDance post, "Scrappy log cabin blocks" . This improvisational approach is a current fashion in quiltmaking, influenced by "The Quilts of Gee's Bend" show in 2002. So your quilt represents the continuity of quiltmaking, setting an an...