Design Wall Monday - Paper Piecing Frenzy

I have a love/hate relationship with paper piecing.  I hate to get started on a small paper piecing project, but once I get my mind to reverse itself and get with the program, then I love the precision that results from it.

At the retreat last week I took many of my UFO's from a long time ago.  One of them was my Purple Pineapple blocks.  I'm embarrassed to say this was started in a class with Jane Hall at the International Quilt Show in Houston in 2000.  To think I could still find it in my sewing room was a miracle. I really need to get some of these old ones finished.  It took me almost half the morning to figure out how to do it again!!  These are tiny little logs - 1/2" in size.  The colors I used were not the best for this pattern. I needed more contrast with my diagonal fabric to make it show up better.   There are 45 tiny pieces in each block and the finished block only measures 6 inches!  What was I thinking??

Here is what I was thinking -- remember this was 12 years ago and I was new to this technique.  I chose the middle fabric first -- my dark blue (or so I thought), followed by the one on the right, the purplish blue (medium) and the light blue (my light) on the left.  What I didn't realize was, the dark had too much of the light blue in it and with the pieces being so tiny, many times where it should be dark, the light blue square in my dark fabric was all you saw.  I'll know better next time.  Wish I had gone with red, green and white,  or red, white and blue.  The pattern would be more pleasing and distinctive and not as mushy. 

light ------------dark   ----------- medium

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this when I get all the blocks done, nor how on earth to quilt it.  Maybe I should just frame it and call it done then.  What would you do?

Hop on over to Judy's and see what's on other design walls.

Tree block and Plum Preserves

 

Earlier this week, I finished paper piecing a tree block for my block exchange group.  Each of us was assigned a color family (mine was purple--fancy that!) and the block had 15 separate pieces.  She wanted 6 different fabrics for the tree, and 8 different cream backgrounds, plus the trunk.   Here's the finished block before trimming.  I basted the outside of the block and the recipient will trim all the blocks after she receives them. The pattern was called "Jeweled Forest" and it's pictured to the side of the block. It's a wall hanging size.

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After finishing my tree block, I wanted to tackle a 5 gallon bucket of freshly picked plums that a friend of my DH gave us.  The real ripe ones were so sweet and delicious, I ate at least a dozen of them before I decided to make some plum preserves with them.  Off I went looking for my canning resource--The "Ball Blue Book of Preserving".  The recipe was simple, sugar, fruit and water.  Can't be too hard, right??  Well, the coarse chopping of the small plums took a bit more time than I thought. I got everything cooking and ready to ladle into the hot jars, then into the boiling water bath; 15 minutes later I took them out of the boiling water to cool and they looked beautiful.  After they cooled, they tasted yummy, BUT they were too soft to stay put on a slice of bread; not thick like jam or preserves should be.  What did I do wrong??

Not one to give up, I tried another batch and this time I let the fruit mixture cook longer on the stove, at least until it seemed like it would all boil away if I didn't stop and start putting it into the jars.  The 2nd batch was thicker, but still not as firm as I think it should be.  I still have enough to try another batch, but I think I need some more advice.  Both batches taste good, but I'm missing something.  The recipe does not call for any Sure Jell or Fruit Pectin, so it should work according to the Ball Book.  Has anyone had this happen to you?  What did you do to correct it?  It does not give any indication as to how long it should boil before you put it in the jars.  That would help immensely.