Today is Mom’s birthday so I wanted to get her something for her special day….2 quilts to bind! Her birthday and Christmas gift is actually the family beach week but we are having lunch with my cousin today and I made her some Ambrosia. We’re both kind of addicted to it right now. At the end of this post I’ll tell you why Ambrosia is a big deal First, here are the quilts.
The first one is a Disappearing 9-patch variation that one of our members taught us in a meeting. The pattern is from Sewing Parts Online. I had no idea that SPO had free patterns but they actually have a bunch of them.
Mom is the queen of scrap quilts and this next one was made with 2.5″ x 4.5″ scraps and she already has another quilt underway using more of them.
I was going to quilt these with white thread but decided to use a pale green variegated to see how it would look. It turned out really nice. The thread on these quilts and the last 4 was King Tut. I’m trying to use up most of it but it gives me tension fits on my machine. I might have to eventually rehome what’s left.
Here are some of the fabrics I dyed yesterday. These were large muslin pieces that a friend asked me to dye. There are 4 big pieces and she wanted 2 each in green and blue. Hopefully she will be happy with these.
Since the background for the fish quilt is now dyed, I pulled out a stack of my old “waste” fabrics to cut out for the fish. I may start cutting these today. Cutting should go pretty quickly.
The background is my Under The Sea Gradient so these fabrics should stand out really well against the sea.
Now, I’ll explain the Ambrosia. It’s really a story about my myriad food allergies and a pretty miraculous treatment that I’ve been taking.
Last year a friend told me about an acupuncture treatment that was developed for Alpha Gal but that also applies to allergies. It’s called SAAT and it entails tiny needles in the ear that stay in for a month to 60 weeks. I was dubious but felt it was worth a try.
I had expected for a long time that the root of my allergies was Mast Cell Activation Syndrome but there’s no real test for it. The SAAT protocol does test for it and confirmed that my main problem was MCAS but it also confirmed many of my other food allergies. Now, SAAT isn’t necessarily a one time treatment. My regular doctor and my acupuncturist both think that I will be needing this for an extended period of time to address the MCAS and chlorophyll allergy. I haven’t even tested for wheat and dairy yet because they don’t cause me the problems of the other allergies. My regular doctor has also put me on other supplements to help with the MCAS.
But, through this treatment I have been able to add back may foods that I haven’t eaten in 25 – 30 years! Those include rice, tomatoes, eggs, almonds, strawberries, raspberries, onion, corn and coconut. Now, for tomatoes, I still have to limit my intake but I used to get migraines from the tiniest bit of tomato. I eat it almost every day now in ketchup and eat raw tomato every other day. I eat corn every day. The biggest surprise and joy is eggs. I haven’t eaten even a tiny bit of egg since about 1990. Same with tomatoes.
On Monday I had an egg and tomato sandwich for lunch. It was DELICIOUS! This is nothing short of a miracle. Even for things that I still react to, the reactions are much less. Currently my plan is to do the treatment one month on and one month off but I’ll do it every month if needed.
That’s the explanation for the Ambrosia. When I found out that I could eat pineapple and coconut again I wanted to have the Ambrosia that I remembered from my childhood. I substituted coconut yogurt for the sour cream and it’s been a really delightful treat. Mom loves it too so I split the batches with her. I made one this morning for her birthday treat.
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