Appleton Dance

by Linda Theil I fell in love with  CAPSULES "Stargazer" fabric line from Art Gallery Fabrics Studio  and could hardly bear to cut the selection of fat quarters I bought as a bundle. I made a tote  that I love and tote with me everywhere. So when I needed fabric for a 60-inch by 80-inch twin-sized quilt, I thought of my "Stargazer" stash. I won't say my "Stargazer" twin is the world's most brilliant or original quilt design, but it is very adaptable, fast and easy to sew, and lends itself to a modicum of self-expression. So I thought it might be worth sharing -- 'cause doesn't that sound great! And if you have fabric you can't bear to cut, you might want to try it, too. What you need for a twin-sized quilt: 12 18-inch squares of coordinating and/or contrasting fabric (possibly cut from 18-inch by 22-inch fat quarters A "jelly roll" of 2.5-inch by 42-inch neutral, contrasting, and/or coordinating fabric -- I used an all-gray je...

By Linda Theil I asked Alisa if she wanted a cosmetics bag to go with her set of Spencer Ogg Packing Pods and she said, "Duh!" I had made her a set of the lightweight packing pods with a "layer cake" of ten-inch squares of Robert Morris reprints from Moda, and blogged about the make here at "Spencer Ogg Packing Pods" . Diane Spencer Ogg also offers a free pattern for a "Cosmetic Pod"  along with a video tutorial on her YouTube channel that I wanted to try. Unlike the lightweight "Packing Pods", Spencer-Ogg recommended a sturdier fabric to give the little cosmetics box/pod some structure. She also said the pattern could be made in larger sizes by increasing the size of the free printed pattern. I had some of the Robert Morris ten-inch squares left over from making Alisa's packing pods, that I could use to make a matching cosmetics pod. I had to piece the ten-inch squares to make a piece of fabric large enough for the one...

by Alisa I recently made a small quilt for myself! I saw  this Instagram post by Kelly of  @jeliquilts  back in the Spring and I just fell in love. The inspiration is much more beautiful -- and quilterly -- than mine. I immediately went looking for that rainbow fabric. It is a Kona Cotton jelly roll from 2017 that was a tricky to find. I found the  Kona Cotton New Bright Palette Rollup  on an Etsy shop where it is now sold out. Missouri Star still has it on their site as "out of stock" so I do have hope they will restock. Meanwhile, the charm packs are available. If you are searching for this, be aware that there is a Kona Brights Palette with a slightly different color selection. I love this Kona New Bright one, but I'm sure there are tons of solids that would look just as lovely. My original plan was to sew 30 of the strips in the 41 strip pack together to get a 42 x 60-inch center panel and then border that six-inches all around and end up around 54 x 72-inch...

by Linda Theil I bought a panel with four "Botanica" placemats by Michel Design Works for Northcott and a "jelly-roll" of 42-inch by 2.5-inch strips of all the fabrics in the "Botanica" line so that I could use the strips to make a quilt-as-you-go backing for the "Botanica" placemat panels. I needed a fifth placemat, so I used scraps of the ginko leaf pattern from Michael D'Amore's "Daily Zen" line for Benartex to make the backing for the fifth placemat. I had to match the pattern to get a piece big enough for the back. Nice job, huh? Quilt-as-you-go is an easy technique for making placemats since the quilting is done along with the piecing. Each placemat on the "Botanica" panel is 21 x 14-inches, so for each placemat I cut a piece of quilt batting in that size, and spray basted one placemat from the "Botanica" panel to one side of the batting with Spray-n-Bond Basting Adhesive . I chose t...

Spencer Ogg Packing Pods in Three Sizes by Linda Theil I ordered the Diane Spencer Ogg Packing Pods in Three Sizes  from her website for £7.50 -- around $10 -- no shipping. The pattern includes a PDF pattern printout and access to an online tutorial at the Spencer Ogg channel on YouTube . I made my packing pods with Moda's "Best of Morris Fall" package of 10-inch squares that I purchased on sale from Missouri Star Quilt Co . for about $17 plus shipping. That Morris precut is no longer available at MoStar, which is just as well, because the 10-inch cuts are really not appropriate for this pattern. I had to piece the precut squares and recut the pieced fabric to fit the pattern. Even fat-quarters would have worked better, but the Robert Morris reprints were too seductive to dissuade me from doing my best to make them work. The pods don't actually require a lot of fabric, but you do need a couple of longer slices to make the gussets. The pods are li...

Alisa wanted to make a small-sized, care pod for a youngster, and I mentioned I had those cute animal panels from the "Thicket" collection by Gingiber Zest for your Nest released in 2016 by Moda. I have two sizes: the large panels measure 17 x 22-inches with a motif of about 10 x 15-inches, and  the small panels measure 9 x 11-inches with a motif of about 6 x 8-inches. (The size of each animal varies slightly.) The Spencer Ogg "Doorstep Care Pod" pattern we used called for a body piece of 14 x 31-inches. The simplicity of the pattern makes it very easy to adjust the size. I decided to use the small panel so I cut it out and used some cream-colored yardage from my stash to make the back and facings. I cut the back to match the size of the fox panel at 9 x 11-inches, but extended the length of the back piece by 1.5-inches to make the body of the bag a little longer so that I wouldn't cut off the fox's tail when I boxed the bottom. I fused a lightwe...

by Linda Theil Yesterday we had a fun and exciting haiku poetry class with Emerson, Jake, Sawyer, Alisa, and Angie. We used the Zoom video conferencing app/software to share our poetry lesson online. I wrote the class outline and Alisa created a PowerPoint presentation that I shared as a separate window in the Zoom meeting. Below is a screen shot of our Zoom classroom. A PDF file of our haiku lesson is online at "Haiku Lesson in Poetry by Linda Theil" . The class is designed to last from 20-30 minutes. We used the recording feature in the Zoom program to record the entire class. The linked poem in our cover shot at the top of this page is a tanka Alisa and I wrote for our haiku class. The art in the photo is by Emerson. We used the Over design app to highlight work by all the poets in yesterday's class. Jake Alisa Angie Sawyer Emerson Update October 7, 2025: Here is the video on YouTube of our Zoom Haiku Class: Resources: Ha...