Appleton Dance

by Linda Theil Alisa and I created a personalized tote to put in each family cabin at our summer  weekend retreat. We wanted to try printing unique fabric at Spoonflower and using that fabric to make the totes. We dood it! Our finished canvas tote is 12-inches wide by 13-inches tall by 5-inches wide. I chose a photo from our same vacation site last year, ran it through the Waterlogue app, used the GoDaddy Studio -- formerly Over -- app to add personalization, and gave the resulting photo file to Alisa. She laid out the square photos with bottoms together to make an 18x36-inch image,  then positioned three images across the fabric width of 56-inches, making three tote bag prints fit on one yard of Spoonflower's 56-inch wide Cyprus Cotton Canvas. Our finished tote measured 12-inches wide by 13-inches tall by five-inches deep. This is the image Alisa uploaded to Spoonflower. Here are Alisa's directions for preparing our art for Spoonflower: You will need to get your design into ...

by Linda Theil People were raving about Mora faux leather, so I thought I'd give it a try. I could only find it available at a Canadian supplier Emmaline Bags in Spruce Grove, Alberta. The 55-inch wide fabric costs about $18 a yard, and is available by the half-yard and yard. Samples are also available for purchase. I chose Spicy Mustard and Moroccan Blue from a dozen basic shades. Service was terrific, and the fabric arrived quickly. Mora faux leather is a really beautiful fabric that I enjoyed working with. I backed all my pattern pieces with a lightweight, fusible interfacing, Pellon Fashion-Fuse made to support leather, imitation leather, and furs without affecting the hand, and to help avoid shifting during sewing, according to the manufacturer. I used a Schmetz Microtex 14/90 needle, and a Teflon foot on my basic Janome heavy duty machine. The photo above is a belt bag made from a Sally Tomato "Ferris" pattern, medium size, in Spicy Mustard Mora faux leather...

  by Linda Theil I saw this method of splicing two pieces of quilted fabric on a YouTube video and wanted to make a note of the process. In addition to the quilt pieces you will be splicing, you will need a one-inch wide strip and a 1.5-inch wide strip -- both as long as the splice you need to make. Lay the 1.5-inch wide strip right side up on a surface and place the back of one piece of the quilted fabric to be spliced on top of the strip. Place the one-inch wide strip right side down on top, sandwiching the quilted fabric between the strips. Stitch all three layers together with 1/4-inch seam. Fold the 1.5-inch strip away from the seam. Place the second piece of quilted fabric, right side down, on top of the one-inch strip. Stitch the second piece of quilted fabric to the one-inch strip with 1/4-inch seam. This is what the splice looks like when you flip the just-stitched quilted fabric open. This is what the back of the splice looks like when you flip the entire workpi...