I've had a week of miserable sickness. I haven't stepped in my sewing room since last Sunday and haven't read a single blog. Of course no exercising or gardening which just makes me frustrated. So I'll spend some time catching up on blog reading and maybe attempt some sewing tomorrow. And cross my fingers for a better week coming up. In the meantime since I have no quilting pictures to post here's one my daughter took. Love that bee in there.

Memorial Day

My dad (with his younger brother) at 19 after serving 2 years in WWII as a navigator for the Navy.

"We're Jamming"

We preempt our regular sewing related blog to post about yesterday's activity - jam making. I was able to get it all done in one day!! That's 1/2 a bushel of strawberries or now about 30 jars of jam. Mr Mad Quilter and 2 of the kids went out of town and dd#2 went to the pool all day so I had no interruptions - but that also meant I had no help. I hate mashing the strawberries - so this years supply may be a little more fruity then usual. The only thing is - right now the sight, smell and thought of eating a strawberry is sickening to me. I had to sample a lot of them.
Look how pretty the color is - maybe tommorrow I'll try some.

On the wagon

Today is day 30 of my fabric diet. I've even been to my lqs and Joann's and left without purchasing fabric! So I'm pretty proud of myself right now. Normally I would go out and celebrate with a fat quarter. I think that might defeat the purpose of the diet. But - does it count if you receive some fabric as a gift? For Mothers day my daughters pooled their very limited resources and bought me these. I've been playing around with the charm packet (I have 2). I love them - 'Fresh' from Moda. No peeks though - because one of my projects with it is a surprise.

I saw this photo on my cousin's facebook page - from a recent trip of hers. That must be some good gravy!

Half way there - I finished my star quilt along from Crazymom quilts www.crazymomquilts.blogspot.com - that she held last summer. Next step - basting. I've never basted a large quilt before. A woman that I know told me yesterday that she never tapes the backings down or uses pins. She uses spray baste - I've seen her quilts and they are really impressive. So does anyone else forgo taping and pinning? Wow if this works for me - I will really knock out some UFO's. Any thoughts?

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day. My mother: Cecelia - she disliked being called Sis (although everyone did. She weighed 98 pounds when she got married and was proud of the fact until she was in her early 70's she never went above 105. She never let anyone take a picture of her with her glasses on. She was married 7 years before my sister and I were sent her way - she really really wanted children. I remember countless hours of her sitting on the floor with me playing games and she let me cheat at scrabble. She would always give me a little money - even when I didn't want it from her - she would say 'just for you' and I would sneak it back into her purse when I grew up. One day she caught me - she was 75 and boy was she mad. She carried this little coin purse that embarrassed me tremendously growing up and now I think that's stupid - so I carry it and it makes me feel happy, and embarrassed at the way I acted about that. She passed away on Mother's Day 3 years ago. So I'll plant some flowers and think of my mother.

This week I have been practicing my free-motion quilting and also working on learning how to machine bind a quilt. Here is my efforts at that:

I also put together some 9-patch blocks for Crazy Mom's www.crazymomquilts.blogspot.com Quilt-Along. I am really enjoying this because I'm using only scraps (so far). It's fun looking at scraps from other things I've done and I'm finally putting them to good use. AND I am on day 13 of my fabric diet!