Give Me The Raspberries!

Summer is here, but my air conditioning has been off all week.  What's with that?  This has been the weirdest summer yet!  It has been beautiful, rainy and cool.  We chose not to put our pool up and I am glad we didn't.  It would not have been worth it.....all the $$ to keep the water clean.  We normally are not bothered with a lot of mosquitoes and the like, but with all the rain, they are a BIG problem.  Especially if you are trying to pick raspberries and there is no breeze.  I feel like a piece of raw meat when I enter into their domain.

 You should have seen me the last time I went out, no you really shouldn't have, hence no selfie here!!!! ........ long pants with bands around my ankles, hooded sweatshirt with the hood scrunched around my face, like a kid would do and make the hoodie be a circle around your face!  Quite a sight!  And I still came in with bites all over my hands and forehead, neck, cheeks......a hot, itchy mess!

All I can say is I must love some special to endure this kind of grief!  My dear Silver Fox only eats raspberry jam on his toast (a jam snob if you can believe that).....have you ever bought raspberry jam from the store.....it is the $$$ in the jam/jelly aisle at the store.  Bless his heart he doesn't ask for hardly anything, so really it is a small indulgence to make him happy!!!!

I started out with 4 quarts of raspberries.  

What do you think of the wooden berry boxes?  I have a stack of them at least 2' high down in the shed. I have no idea how many there are of them! They are brand new, except for the few on top that I have used each season.  I found them at my Grandma Theden's house in Jesup.  I have no idea why she had so many, although she used to have a strawberry bed back in the day. 

But they are too cute not to use!!!

And really as I was crushing them to begin the process......they were almost too nice to crush up.  These babies were huge!

Have the sugar & pectin all mixed in.....ready to fill some jars.

Wonder how many jars I will get filled today?

Yum!

I have been working on this little scrappy number.  I think Karen from IL gave this pattern to me from my Small Quilt online group in a Christmas swap we did last year.  The pattern is called Chattanooga and is by Sew Unique Creations.  My #4 daughter lives in Chattanooga....maybe she will want it????

   It was such a blast to dump out my reproduction basket of scraps and start cutting strips and squares and it just looks wonderful, no matter the color only the value matters!  I have it layered, but haven't started quilting on it yet!

The Dear Jane Challenge for this week!

TR-12

I am making slow progress on the top border of my quilt.  I have had several days of not being able to work on it, but the week has been busy and "jam has been made."  But we soldier on.....  :)  Your challenge for this week is one of the triangles on the top edge.  The link will take you to the triangle tip page and trust these are helpful to you!

Today in the Civil War was The Battle of Fort Wagner.  It is not a place we have been able to visit, but if you have watched the movie Glory....it will the make story come alive for you.