Baltimore Fruit Bowl - Valuable Lessons

Over the years, I have been fortunate to attend lots of appliqué workshops, learning from many talented teachers and friends. None of these class projects were ever finished during class. Hand appliqué, especially Baltimore-style, is not known for instant gratification. However, I do not count the hours, I just enjoy them.

I was just going to make one block … this Fruit Bowl, in a class taught by Anne Connery.

 

 

Anne provided each student a pack of wonderful fabrics for the pineapple, the bowl, watermelon, and some leaves. Anne’s kits did not include background fabric – we were to bring our own. This turned out to be the "most valuable lesson" I learned from Anne in that class – always bring your own background fabric to class. That way, no matter what fabrics are used or offered in a project kit, your blocks are more likely to eventually go together in a quilt! That is probably why my “Pride of Baltimore II” quilt eventually became a finished quilt, instead of unfinished (and unrelated) blocks languishing in a closet somewhere.

 

The pineapple was another valuable lesson, and the biggest challenge for me. It is made by sewing criss-crossed lines of running stitches and then gathering them up to tie around a template. Challenging, but what fun! Blackberries were gathered a similar way. The bitten apple (a bit of broderie perse) and peaches were harvested from my fabric stash. (You can click on this photo for an extreme closeup.)

 

This is one block that wound up in my "Pride of Baltimore II" quilt, along with 11 others and the central medallion with the schooner. I'll publish more about those in future posts.

 

Pattern for this block can be found in “Papercuts and Plenty” by Elly Sienkiewicz.

(c) 2015 Barbara M. Burnham. All rights reserved. Reproduction of any kind is expressly prohibited without prior written authorization.