Pineapple Upside-Down Cake Quilt

In all the projects I made this year I was interested in using materials that I already had. In this piece of work I used a bag of offcuts of fabric which had Bondaweb on the back of them left over from creating lettering for banners which I have previously made. I cut small squares out of lime, lilac and dark blue fabric from my stash and then cut the Bondawebbed material in to shapes attempting to leave each piece as close to it’s found shape as possible. I ironed these shapes on to each small square quickly without over-thinking the layouts in abstract designs.

This piece is inspired by a memory I have of baking a pineapple upside-down cake on a Sunday morning when I was a child. I think it was the first more complex thing that I baked on my own. After my Mum started to go to a church service on Sunday mornings she used to leave our family Sunday lunch prepared, the dining table laid and a list of written instructions, for example, turn oven on at 11am, turn hob on at 12:45pm. Over the years this system operated in our home the non church goers repeatedly got these simple instructions wrong, we forgot to put the oven on or put the oven on late and cranked the temperature right up or forgot to turn the hob on or turned it on too early. As I write this I wonder if it was sabotage, carelessness or incompetence, no option puts us in a great light. My Mum patiently rescued these meals on the disastrous Sundays except for one Sunday when she quite justifiably went flipping mental as far as I remember the straw that broke the camel’s back was a pan of burnt dry peas. My family sat, upset and miserable around our dining table and to break the silence my Dad asked my Mum

What was the sermon about today?

And she sighed and replied

Be kind to one another (Ephesians 4:32)

Forty years later I offer my apologies Mum Xxx

I bonded the squares on to white fabric and sandwiched the quilt with cotton wadding and white backing fabric.

I quilted this wall hanging with YLI invisible thread. Tricky because you cannot see it as you are sewing.

I like the visual a launderette gives and I took some photos of this quilt in my local laundromat. Loved the film “My Beautiful Laundrette” when I was in my teens.

Here is Pineapple Upside-down Quilt in it’s final resting place, my clinic waiting room.

Love Melanie xx