Project Quilting 13-3 Kitchen Influence

 Kitchen Influence

I have fond memories of apple butter from my Grandmother's house. 

While she grew up in Pennsylvania, I grew up in Florida. Apples only made an appearance in the toe of my Christmas stocking. I found Apple butter to be quite a treat on buttered bread. She lived next door to me and, while we had several types of jelly and preserves at our house, only Grandma had Apple butter. 

Fast Forward to now and Silver Dollar City sells apple butter. I bought some and it was different from what I knew- it had a more jelled consistency. Not what I remembered. My shop also makes caramel apples. Sometimes the apples would be bruised and we would take them home. I made fried apples and apple crisp and then one day, I decided to look into making apple butter in a crock pot. 

Now, these apples are green ones and quite tart, but it makes for an apple butter that is quite yummy to me. I've made a few batches and have shared. 

Apple Butter

7.5" x 10"

Let's Learn as we go!

I've never made an envelope quilt finish before. I am considering doing it for a bigger piece, so this was a perfect opportunity to try it out. I was using lots of scrap pieces of all fabrics for this piece and the batting was part of a sample packet. 

I sewed the backing to the front with the batting inside, leaving a 3" space to turn it. I poked out all the corners, turned under the edges of the opening and pinned it shut. 

I did all the quilting after it was turned and pressed right side out. 

My sewing machine has some "quilting stitches" that I never really tried using because they seem VERY small. In this case, since the piece was so small, I think it worked. I kept black thread in the bobbin so I could see how the stitches looked on both sides. In the end, after I did the jar and apples, I went back to free motion quilting. I used red, black, brown and blue threads in the top. 

What did I learn?

I learned that I had curving of the overall piece that I won't like in a bigger one. I'm not sure if I can adjust it by blocking it, but I'm sure that I will probably bind my other piece like I usually do. It's not worth all that work to not get a good final result. 

I learned that I probably will not use those pre programed quilt stitches for a larger piece. It is so dense and would take too long. 

Yes or No

There's a lot I like about this piece. I like how painterly it looks and how imperfect it is. I liked the collage approach to the apples and how the red thread brought it all together. I like how the background fabric reminds me of an old tablecloth and a bit old fashioned in a way. 

I like that I used up scraps (although I might have had different reds in the apples if I wasn't using just random scraps I dug out.) 

What I don't like is that I didn't keep it squared up and I'm not sure how to fix it so I don't end up with pointy corners and curvy sides, especially with a bigger piece.