Labor Day Weekend

I hope everyone had a wonderful Labor Day Weekend! It was so nice to leave work Friday afternoon knowing I would have an extra day to sleep in.

I spent the weekend at my parents lake house in Hartwell. I left Friday after dinner to avoid traffic but ended up sitting in park on 85N for two hours because of a terrible car accident ahead of me. I had the dog with me and had to let him out on the side of the road, not the ideal situation. 

I didn't get to the lake house till late Friday night so I went to bed and woke up to these amazing homemade orange cinnamon rolls.

(Weekends at the lake are all about trying new recipes and ignoring nutrition facts)

Poncho is always in the kitchen waiting for something to drop!

Poncho loves the lake, he spends a ton of time outside and always sleeps on this pillow.

Saturday night we tried a new dessert from the Pioneer Woman cookbook. 

About to bake the peach crisp with maple cream sauce

*I loved the helpful hint in her cookbook. 

It was beyond amazing.  I will be making this again very soon.

Corn hole is the favorite game at the lake.

My brother created the design of the catfish.

We had a lot of family up on Saturday!

One of my students brought me some eggs from her chickens on Friday.  I took them up to the lake for breakfasts! Some of the eggs were blue-it was so fun to have fresh eggs.

We also tried making homemade herb biscuits.

We brushed the dough with butter and sprinkled dried chives, thyme, parsley, and salt/pepper.

We rolled the dough up jelly roll style and pinched the ends to close.

We cut them into 12 pieces and put them in muffin pans to bake.

We let them rise...

Sprinkled them with parmesan cheese before going in the oven...

They were so light and full of flavor.  Next time I would add garlic.

We had pasta with tomatoes, spinach, pine nuts, and onion.

Grilled pork.

Cherry pie!

Have a great week!

How much is too much?

Well- it has only taken 15 days of being around kid germs to get sick.  One of the joys of being a teacher.

On to my lastest project!

 I started these a long time ago....

They are at the top of the stairs in the "landing/loft?" I had the "mini quilts" finished a while ago but was in search of the perfect frames for them.

*Please ignore the pile of CLEAN laundry- my husband just got home from tour for a month.

I was so excited when I found this frame at an antique market. My dad put a wood board behind the frame so it would be more stable.

I had a pattern for this mini quilt.  I wanted to find vintage looking fabrics.

I used velcro dots to attach the quilts to the wood behind the frame, seems to be working so far....

The hand stitching was my favorite part!  Can you see the circles on the left fabric??

I used the blanket stitch for a lot of the pieces.

This is the owl.  I did not have a pattern for this one so I just created something similar to the bird pattern.

I used different fabrics that looked vintage to me.

I also found this frame at the antique market (Lakewood 400)

This quilt also has a lot of hand stitching to give it subtle details. 

***I can't decide if the metal birds and owl above the frames are too much? I am letting them stay for a few days to see how I feel about it.  I would love any opinions!

At last....

It is finished!  I started this Halloween quilt many months ago and it is completely finished now 

(well I need to put a label on it but I can add that later) 

and I can't wait for October 1 to get here so I can hang it up!

I am going to sew a pocket in the back and it will hang where my bird quilt is now on my kitchen wall.

I found most of the fabrics at JoAnn but had to order some from etsy- the green spider border, the big polka dot, and the stripe jacket fabric.

This quilt was all applique, tons of it! I did it all on the machine.

It was so fun to pick out all the fabrics!

The hand stitching on the bottles took forever but it was worth it for the look.

Once I appliqued the top I took it to someone that has a long arm machine and they quilted the top, batting, and backing together (this was well worth the $ because I never would have been able to add the details she did with her machine).

Look how cute the pumpkins are on the 4 corners...

She added in Halloween words and outlined all the spiders and webs on the border!

I added a lot of small details with beads, buttons, and words once it was quilted. 

The swirls are all over each square but are in different colors so that they go with the various fabrics.

I can't believe it is finished!

Now I have to work on my Christmas, Valentine's, owl, and another bird quilt!  I need to slow down on buying more patterns until I finish what I have!