A Day for Experimentation

Good morning, my friends. My day turned into a kitchen day yesterday, although I had some time to get started on the quilting too. When I finished my slow-stitching, the kitties were champing at the bit to get outside. I'm pretty sure I heard Sadie discussing how happy she was to be finished with the paper-piecing. Smitty had to agree, although of the two helpers, he was the most charitable.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I was getting ready to test a recipe for America's Test Kitchens. It took a couple of hours to get it to this stage. The crust is made from pumpernickle flour and ground caraway seeds, plenty of melted butter, and a few other things. The filling is essentially a grapefruit curd. The color came from six drops of red food coloring, and it was pretty when it came out of the oven.

From there, it needed time to cool. It was a perfect time for me to get to work figuring out how to quilt the Strips and Stripes quilt. I've had this quilt on my mind for months. For once, I thought to decide about the thread ahead of time. If I'm remembering right, the spool on the right was a gift from my quilting fairy godmother, Ila. Thank you, Ila. As always, your threads are appreciated.

Over time, I've come to appreciate having at least two spools of thread available to me when I start a quilting project. The bobbin for my machine is wound on a separate bobbin winder, and threading the machine for the top thread is kind of a pain. So, if I have two spools, I can have one dedicated to the bobbin winder and one dedicated to the machine. And since I had just one spool, I went in search of another on the Superior Threads website. It was a "Signature" brand, but the color number was blotted out with a Sharpie for some reason. Maybe no reason. Maybe it was just coincidence. But that meant I could only eyeball what I thought the right color was, and I ordered the spool on the left. They're wound differently, of course, but it looks like the same color to me. Certainly, it will work. These are both 40 weight cotton threads.

Okay, and so I had the square foot already on the machine. I wanted a 3/4-inch distance between my seam and the stitched line, and I needed to stitch both horizontally and vertically. (My machine is a sit-down machine, and so I'm doing free motion quilting. The machine is stationary.) And the problem with this foot is that the shank that attaches to the machine doesn't allow me to butt the ruler tight against the side of the foot for quilting vertically.

Okay, but how does it work if I stitch horizontally? That could work, and I convinced myself by stitching a relatively straight line. Still, I find it hard to hold a ruler stable and move the quilt at the same time.

So, still experimenting, I attached the 3/4-inch "echo" foot. I like this because the 3/4-inch measurement is the same no matter which direction I'm stitching. And this has the advantage of also measuring 3/4-inch from the end of a line.

So, next I experimented to see how easily I could stitch a straight line, just eye-balling the edge of the foot with my drawn line. It was easy, and I could turn the corners with no problem. This was obviously the better choice.

And then, I went to work. When I finished the first block, I took a good look at it and decided it was good enough. 

It's not perfect, but "good enough" is good enough. Also, I figured I'd improve with practice, and I did. And not only that, but when this quilt is washed and fluffed up, any slight bobbles will be hard to find. 

When I had two rows finished, I took it off the machine to have a look.

Here's a closer shot. I'm liking how this is going, and it's going pretty fast too.

And for this quilt, my design was partly selected for how it would look on the back. I purchased two backings for this quilt. I had this one shown below first, but then I wasn't sure about it, and so I purchased another. And then, I decided I liked this first one best, but I still wanted the quilting to add a little more visual interest. So, I like how this is looking too.

Okay, and then it was time to get back to my recipe test. The recipe would have me add a whipped cream topping. For this citrus dessert though, I thought it was crying out for a meringue topping. Lemon Meringue, right? Why not Grapefruit Meringue? And since the tart left me with four leftover egg whites, it seemed obvious that they could be used to make a meringue. 

I'm not supposed to deviate from the test recipe, but for this one, I did anyway. My ingredients, my choice. So, that's what I did. I spread the meringue over the top, and then toasted it with a kitchen torch. After eating it last night, I'm sticking to my guns about the meringue topping. It was the right choice.

So, I can't share the recipe with you until after it's published. Who knows when that will be? But I'll say this about it: I absolutely could not get it out of the pan. The crust has a lot of melted butter, and it seeped under the crack of my removable pan bottom, effectively cementing the two pieces together. I couldn't separate the bottom from the outer ring. No problem, I thought. I'd just use a spatula and scoop the slices out like a pie. Well, nothing doing. The crust was stuck so hard to the pan I could not get it out except to dig it out with a fork. It ended up quite a mess on our plates. Oh well. It still tasted good. 

The test recipes come with an email you can write to if you have questions or comments. I intend to ask them about this stuck-to-the-pan issue. My pan was no-stick, and I've never had something so impossible to remove. I'm curious to see what they'll say because the recipe is a winner except for that one slight problem at the end...right before you want to eat it.

Well, that all happened later, of course. When I had the meringue finished, I went back to my quilting and quilted one more row. At least, I tried. My very helpful cat came to see how things were going.

Wouldn't you like to have some kitty furs mixed in with your lint?

Why don't you use this machine more often? It's excellent for chin-scratching.

So, I encouraged him to take a seat to my left, and then I quilted one more row. That's three of seven rows finished. I'm hoping to get at least two more finished today, and then two more tomorrow. As usual, however, free motion quilting has given me a slight case of tendonitis in my left wrist. My wrist will decide how much quilting I do over the next couple of days. It might help to splint it, and that's what I'll do.

Also on today's agenda is applesauce. I have four jars left from last year and several jars of apple pie filling. I have plenty of apple pie filling, but I'd like to finish off this year's canning season with a batch of applesauce. That shouldn't take the whole day, and there should be some time for quilting.