Looking back: the Winter Apples quilt from 2009

Today, I will share some of my “quilt thinking” and reflections on one of my earlier quilts. This is one of my first quilts, and it’s called Winter Apples / Talviomenoita:

I was inspired by a quilt-along that Crazy Mom Quilts started in the spring of 2009. The quilt-along made me wonder if I could make a quilt if I followed her lead and sewed one block per day until I had enough for a quilt top?

Turns out that I did! Though I did not sew one block per day along the quilt-along. This is the first picture of this quilt project, and one of the few that I took:

I didn’t have a blog or a proper digital camera, and quilt photos were thus a rare thing for me back then.

When I look at the quilt blocks now, I would like to re-do some of my nine-patch blocks so that they would all have enough value contrast. Especially the ones that look more like a “square-in-a-square" blocks!

The centers of the nine-patches are of an extremely long piece of fabric that I bought in 2007 or 2008. See, I still have some of that fabric left:

Because the red-yellow apples are relatively large compared to the size of the squares, some of my center squares ended up yellow while others were predominantly blue, and that is why there is real lack of contrast in some of the nine-patches.

The apple-patterned fabric was of course the inspiration for the name Winter Apples.

I see that I had only a vague understanding of value contrast back then and thought that colour choices and colour contrast would bring success. However, I understood enough to have the contrast between the sashings and the colourful nine-patch blocks (or maybe I just copied the quilt-along example). As a result, I liked this quilt a lot more than my very first one which did not come out at all like I’d envisioned!

You can read about my first quilt project in this post: 3 beginner quilting mistakes I made on my first quilt.

Just like I often do nowadays, I arranged the blocks into value order: dark blocks concentrated to one end, light ones to the other one:

I'm not sure if I arranged the blocks in the Winter Apples quilt in a way that looks “upside down” in my eye today - or if I just happened to throw the quilt on the lawn with the lighter blocks on what looks like the bottom edge.

Maybe the quilt is upside down. Why would I place the lighter blocks on the bottom because it is dark colours that look “heavier”? Be that as it may, the colours are nice, and I especially like the bright area of yellows and light greens.

Back then, there was no longarm quilting service available, and I had to quilt this myself, on my domestic sewing machine. I chose a lightweight polyester batting – one of the two choices of batting available in the stores back then – and that made quilting easier.

For the quilting pattern, I chose to stitch parallel, wavy lines diagonally over the quilt. I wanted the lines to be evenly spaced, so I used a ruler and drew lines using a disappearing marker. I made the ruler myself from the cover of a soft plastic binder. Because the ruler was only around 8-9" long, it took some effort to draw the longest lines!

I used a variegated thread for quilting and would not choose the same thread again because its darker parts stood out from the very light surface. I prefer a lighter-coloured thread on a light-coloured background.

After being so underwhelmed by my first quilt, it took me more than ten years to try again. So, I got an important learning from making the Winter Apples quilt. I discovered that I did have it in me after all to make a good-sized quilt and achieve a colourful, visually pleasing result. And there has been no turning back after that discovery!

Quilt details for “Winter Apples” / “Talviomenoita”

Pattern: Crazy Mom Quilts 9-patch-a-day sew-along quilt
Block: 9-patch blocks sewn of 5-cm (2-inch) squares
Size: The quilt-along says 66” x 90” but I dont’have the measurements of my own quilt
Quilting: self-quilted on a domestic sewing machine
Quilting pattern: diagonally running wavy lines
Backing: tiny polka dots on a cream background, quilting cotton
Binding: Self-made, colourful scrappy binding. Cut 6 cm wide, folded in half before attaching.
Finished: September or October 2009
Quilt number: 2

If you want to follow my quilting endeavours – what I’m working on, the past projects and what I’ve finished (and get some quilting tips, too), you can subscribe to my biweekly newsletter here: https://tilkunviilaaja.blogspot.com/p/subscribe-today.html

(Remember to take the second step when subscribing: you will get an email asking you to confirm. My emailing system can only send you the newsletters if you have clicked on the button in that email.)