Our neighbors were recently blessed with a gorgeous baby boy, and the good news sent me to my sewing machine. I used fabric from my stash along with some blue Kona cotton to make this quilt for baby Bentley.
I decided to just do cross-hatch quilting (evenly spaced diagonal lines in two directions) on this quilt ,and it only took me about an hour using my supermachine. It actually took longer to bind it, which I did by hand while watching Downton Abbey.
Recently my eldest daughter celebrated her birthday. I thought the day should be marked with a quilt, specifically one using fabric by her favorite designer, Lotta Jansdotter.
I bought a jelly roll of Jansdotter’s fabric line, Follie, with the intention of making a Jelly Roll Race quilt (they’re so much fun). But then I found another pattern online that I liked better. The quilt top went together quickly because jelly rolls are so easy to work with.
Free-motion quilting the quilt was a little daunting. I couldn’t think of how to quilt it, and I didn’t want it to look like my usual quilts with lots of curves and flowers. After taking some time to think about it, I realized that merely echoing the designs in the fabric would make the back echo the front. I enjoyed just following the lines instead of having to think about the designs I was quilting.
I’m happy that my daughter seemed pleased with her quilt. I really enjoyed making it for her!
One of the best things about fall where I live is that apples are in season. The grocery store’s produce department has apples everywhere, and local orchards are offering the best apples you can find. But my favorite apples are clearance apples:
That’s right, I like ’em cheap and aging, because that means I get to make applesauce. (Save your perfect apples for eating out of hand.) Let’s start by putting a few cups of water, a splash of lemon juice, a dash of salt and a cinnamon stick in a good-sized pot on the stove:
Turn the heat on low, and while it warms up, you can get started with the apples.
Back in the day, I put my kids to work helping me peel, slice and chop apples. This was the price they had to pay for enjoying fresh applesauce, not to mention homemade apple pie if I was feeling really energetic.
Now that my kids are grown, I’ve found a new, quieter helper:
This is an apple peeler/corer. I love this thing: it works so fast! I’m sure my kids wish I’d had one when they were younger, but all that apple-peeling was character-building, right? Anyways, if you don’t have one of these, start peeling and slicing until you wind up with some of these:
Start throwing them in the pot and stirring them in so the lemon juice can keep your slices from turning brown. Add water as needed to keep an inch or so of liquid in the bottom of the pan.
Check with a fork to see if your apples are soft yet. Once they are, you can easily mash them with a potato masher and then give them a good stir. (Be sure to take out the cinnamon stick first.)
You might want to add a little sugar. I only buy organic cane sugar now because today’s “regular” sugar comes from sugar beets, not sugar cane.
Homemade applesauce is great when it’s warm; if you have any left over, be sure to put it in the fridge.