Annual Apple Butter Boiling and Georgia Trip

Every year Mom and Dad have the family in 
for an apple butter boiling.

 

The shed in the background is where we boil the apple butter.  Part of the day included games of volley ball.

 There are to many people to feed at one time so we have two shifts.  Here are the grandchildren, nieces and  friends.

 When the apple butter is done, the games come out.

 Terry, myself, some of my children and Autumn's friend Laban went for a hike on Sunday afternoon.

 My mother and I went to Georgia this week.  This is Georgia cotton in round bales.

 We stayed at my sisters home.  One morning we had a brunch with her daughter and daughter-in-laws.

 We toured Pineland Bakery ,my nephew Kurtis's bakery. Kurtis is cutting cookies to bake.

 My niece Katina is showing us how this huge oven can bake many trays of goodies at one time.

 Fresh bakery items are prepared Monday through Saturday.

 Another specialty is cake decorating.

 We traveled on down the road to my cousin's store called Wagon Barn Market.  They specialize in making a couple dozen different kinds of ready to bake casseroles and cakes.

 When we stopped by, my Aunt Ida from Virginia was in the kitchen washing dishes.  Mother visited with her a little.

 Then we traveled a little further and visited another cousin, Nevin. He makes and cans barbecue sauces and salad dressings.

 To top off the day my sister Coleen treated us out to lunch at a quaint restaurant.

What took me to Georgia was a class and lecture in Statesboro, Ga. Visiting my sister and her family was an added bonus. This Star Chain table runner was the class I taught.

Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale

It is the time of year again for the Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale. The sale starts Friday evening October 3 and continues on Saturday October 4.  I donated my original wall quilt Desert Rose.  This wall quilt is pictured on my Desert Rose pattern.

This is an original by Autumn (my daughter).  This quilt will also be sold at the Mennonite Relief Sale.

 The Dayton Mennonite Sewing Group hand quilted this quilt and Margaret Layman pieced it.  This is also one of many quilts that will be sold at the Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale. 

Check out this link to see all the quilts that will be at the auction.

This is a design I created on my electric quilt program.

Here I am playing with different fabrics to see what 

values of fabrics work best for the quilt.

 

 Here is one of the many triangle units.

I quilted between the stars with green thread and kept the needle on  the green fabric.  I echo stitched the stars with white quilting thread.  This helped make the stars stand out.

I used finer stitching in small stars.

I will use variegated green and blue thread for the background. I will blog about the finished quilt next time.

While I was quilting I also had my steamer cooking grapes.  About every 30 minutes I would add grapes to the steamer, stir the grapes and then fill 2 jars.

The pulp that was left in the steamer I ran through my Victorian squeezer which took out the seeds and skins.  What you see in the pan on the left I will make grape pies with.  Delicious with vanilla ice cream.

 Now I have grape juice concentrate ready to mix up this winter. This is a  Sunday evening favorite served with popcorn.