apples

A little bit early, perhaps, but I couldn’t wait. Last weekend was super fun. Kristen celebrated her last year as a twenty-something in the usual manner: with apples, beer, and friends. I had a blast. I love apple picking, and look forward to it every year. Tasty! This year was a bit soggier than years past, due to the rain that morning, but we didn’t see much of it while out picking apples because most of us were quite late to the gathering. See, it pays to be tardy!

I’ve never been apple picking at any other place, but I can’t ever see us wanting to go anywhere other than Russel Orchard in Ipswich, MA. It’s perfect. You’ve got your hay ride up to the orchards, farm animals roaming around, pumpkins gathered for sale, a big barn store filled with produce, honey, (and here’s the best bit) several varieties of fruit wine. After sampling nearly every variety of wine, we settled on their black currant. It’s a sweet dessert wine, but still has a bit of a tart/dryness that keeps it from being overly sweet, in my opinion.

After apples and fun at the orchard, the caravan traveled to Salem for dinner at the Beer Works. Food and beer were excellent as usual. Salem businesses close down quite early, so we didn’t get the opportunity to check out the apothecary, unfortunately. After that, we headed to Kristen’s and watched the Rev’s game (woo!), played Scene It, and had some more food and drink. We ended up leaving rather early since we had to be somewhere the next morning. I wish we could have stayed over and chatted some more, though.

Sunday morning was Patti’s quilt show. Her guild (the Silver City Quilt Guild) has only been around for a year or so, and this was their first show. I don’t even know how many quilts were entered into the show, but by the looks of it, it was a complete success. I hope the vendors fared well, too. Each program had a ballot included so you could vote for your favorite quilt. JeT picked one of Patti’s and I picked one of the three hand quilted ones. Which brings me to the following conclusion: I’m a craft snob, I think. Some of these quilts were quite beautiful, and as I’m marveling at the skill with which they are put together, I notice a comment in the accompanying description indicating that such and such a quilt has been machine quilted by so and so (often a different person than the quilter at hand).

I found it jarring that so many quilts in this guild’s show were quilted by machine. Yes, it does take skill to execute complicated stitchery using a machine, but still, what I find most impressive about quilting is the time devoted to the creation of one object. My mother hand quilts everything she makes. It takes her months to finish one quilt. We’re talking hundreds of hours. A machine takes, what, a couple of hours at most? And the fact that they’re being sent out to be quilted. I don’t know, I guess it seems a bit like cheating. And to top it all off, the ones that were hand quilted were done with very little skill. Again, I’m comparing them with my mother’s work, where the stitches are minuscule and perfect. The emphasis was certainly on the piecing of the quilt top, and the quilting was a sort of after thought. In having so many machine quilted items, it’s like they were missing out on half of the craft. See? Quilt snob. And I’m not even a quilter.

That being said, most of them were stunningly beautiful, and it was difficult choosing which one I liked the best. There were some really lovely color combinations. I walked up to one, and went “ooh, I love the color in this one.” Of course, it was one of Patti’s, and she creates her quilts using fabric that she dyes and paints herself. It’s breathtaking. I also learned a couple of new techniques, which are making me want to take up quilting again. Alas, that’s one craft that’s going to have to wait. The crafty back log is already staggering.