The Quilt is Back!

 I got a call from Pam, the lady who is doing the finish stitching on my quilt, to give me the good news that she was done a full week ahead of schedule.  I couldn't wait to go get it and am absolutely thrilled with the results! As you'll see for yourself, it turned out even better than we hoped.  If you click on the actual picture you can see the detail better.

This is the back side so you can see the detail in the stitching.This essentially makes it a reversible quilt.

The front side.

Details of the front-highlighting the cardinal profile.

Here it is folded down so you can see both sides at the same time. 

Now I just have to put on the binding all around the edges. I am thrilled .

Table Topper

Four women from church are getting together each Thursday night to "play". This is what we did in the last 2 weeks.  Each person did their own with their own fabric colors. Here is mine.  I sewed these squares together at home and brought this to our Thursday night group.

 We then cut them apart with a cool twisted ruler that Melissa has.  After resewing them together I ended up with this 20 inch square table topper.

 This twisted ruler is so quick and fun.  You magically get to see plain square blocks get turned into pinwheels.  I put a yellow border around it when I was finished and am in the process of sewing on the brown bias tape trim.  I made this bias tape to use as the trim.

Bias tape is so much fun to make.  You get to use your special fabric to match whatever project you are doing.  It is more versatile than the boring stuff from the store. I made a big  batch of this since this is the same bias tape I will be using for my big quilt when I get it back from the long-arm quilter. I had a fun Sunday. Tomorrow....back to the wedding dress. Sara is coming for another fitting next week. I will have the sleeves and the zipper in by then.

My pieced quilt-top is done

 I have completed piecing the top of my quilt. Here it is spread out on the living room floor since I needed to square it up to the backing.  The backing is the little bit of white edging you see.  The overall dimension is 100X100 inches.

This is Pam's long-arm quilter.  This machine is amazing!!!!!  No wonder it costs tens of thousands of dollars.  She had books and books of patterns we could choose from. We were even able to project the images up on that huge screen in order to get a good visual of what it will look like. We decided on the cardinal/dogwood blossom print below to use as the quilt design and a shimmery brown thread to use. It looks amazing. She will program it to print the first row facing one direction and the next row to face the opposite direction. This info may not be doing it justice but it looked really cool up on the screen and I think it will be amazing when we get it back.  She will have it about 2 weeks.  

Christmas Decorations

Last year we did not put up any decorations as were were in the process of moving and things were packed up. So when it came time to decorate the house this year it was fun "rediscovering" our favorite items and locating places for them in the new house. Here are a few focal points.

 The tree fits nicely where we envisioned it when planning and building.

 The fireplace mantle with all the painted Santas. These were displayed on the piano for decades and we are happy with the new display upon Dad's mantle.

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A close-up of the Santas

Of course we had to put a string of lights up on the chickens home. 

Success at Last

Many of you know I took up deer hunting over the last year.  Like many sports/hobbies, it takes a fair amount of equipment to be successful. I have  acquired clothing (camo), a tree stand, a crossbow, black powder rifle and a conventional rifle in order to pursue this sport. In NC, we have three different seasons, archery, black powder and rifle, each providing an opportunity to hunt while limiting access to other types. Lisa has been very understanding and willing to let me pursue this sport which I really appreciate.

I spent a lot of time in the woods since deer season started back in early September. Alas, it has been a difficult year, with fewer deer available as well as crazy weather when I was able to hunt. enough excuses, I have enjoyed my time in the woods and have learned a great deal about wildlife, our beautiful western North Carolina ecology and how to be patient and still, something my elementary school teacher would be most impressed with.  About two weeks ago I shot a beautiful buck on the first day of rifle season, however, despite a good blood trail, we were not able to locate him in very heavy cover: very depressing. This past Saturday, all the hard work finally paid off. While hunting near a local power line right of way, we spotted three deer making their way toward us. We waited until they got approximately 70 yards away before taking a shot. I was fortunate enough to shot mine through the shoulders which prevented it from going very far after the shot.  Needless to say, it was extremely satisfying to finally complete a goal you've spent a significant amount of time  to accomplish.

after dragging it out, we gutted and skinned it before taking it to the butcher for hanging and processing.

This deer will add to our larder and supplement the food we grew in our garden. Lisa and I both enjoy venison and look forward to enjoying this through the winter.  There is still a little time left to the season, I'll be out there seeing if I can add another to the freezer before its all over for another year.

Lollygagging in Lisa's Larder- November

The kitchen in November has seen a lot of food from the freezer and the pantry. Remember all that stuff you saw getting put into jars and into the freezer back in the summer months?  Well, we are eating it right now.  Patrick and I spent a little bit of time the other night going thru our quicken files and not surprisingly found that our lowest grocery bills occur in December, January and February.  November’s cooking pictures, or lack thereof, document that I have been concocting a lot of meals from “put up” food. So here are the photos from November.

November garden harvests:

Broccoli, carrots and lettuce. Obviously we are eating the lettuce fresh, and unfortunately it is coming to an end. We ate some of the broccoli and carrots and the rest we blanched and froze for later meals.

A meal all our own…..stuffed peppers, cranberry orange sauce and corn.

 We have really been enjoying that fast food from the freezer.  These stuffed peppers are just as good as they were when we ate them fresh thru the summer. This was the last jar of the cranberry orange sauce I made last winter. Making more is on my do list for this weekend since berries are now back in the grocery store for the holidays. I sure wish we could grow these on the property since we love them so. The corn was just thawed, heated and “doctored” with frozen peppers and dehydrated onions.

Venison and gnocchi stew......

I used the last of the venison from the freezer, mixed it with the gnocchi I made and froze a few months ago and made a terrific stew for a cold fall night. Unless Patrick is successful in the next few weeks, we won’t be seeing any more venison meals. Patrick isn’t the only one who has been unsuccessful this year.  Two very seasoned hunters he hunts with are also down on their luck this year. Keep praying for him.

Lemon Chicken…with broccoli

This is an old standby but I usually grate carrots in it. This day I cooked up some broccoli that I had just cut from the garden. Served over the lemon pepper noodles. It doesn't show up well on our plates. 

More butternut squash and apple butter……..2 things I canned this month

Desserts for the month

Apple pie- 

I really like those new leaf shaped pastry cutter Patrick got for me.  You can see I use them a lot. This was all that was left of the pie when I realized that I had not photographed it.   

Cranberry raisin pie

 Patrick was thankful that I made this for Thanksgiving and took it to the mountains with us.  We got to bring the leftovers home. Great breakfast food. 

Blueberry, chocolate chip bundt cake

A new favorite. Easy to make and it was a hit at thanksgiving. There were no leftovers to bring home.

Oatmeal bars with strawberry rhubarb filling....

I made these to put in the freezer for when Ryan and Sharee come.  I don't know if they will make it until then. 

So there you have it for the month......4 vegetable harvests, 3 meals, and 4 desserts.  Seems balanced to me?!?!?!?!?

Ready for Winter

With night time temperatures falling below freezing on a fairly regular basis, we figured it was time to fully winterize the chicken coop.When Carrie and Travis were here, we had cut and installed boards for under the coop to cut out any wind that might find its way into the coop, put down about eight inches of fresh pine chips for insulation and built new windows to fill the openings we had left open during the sumer months. Our latest project was to ensure that the birds had enough light to keep laying eggs (length of day is what determines egg laying, not temperature) and a ready supply of water that wasn't frozen. The first was easy, we ran a power cord down to the coop and hooked up a timer that ensures that they have an additional 3 hours of daylight.

The second required a little research. Thank God for Google, as that was the source of an inexpensive heat source created with one of these

and an old cookie tin which is then plugged in,

and sets directly below one of the girl's waterer.  It keeps it just warm enough to prevent freezing but doesn't put them at risk for getting burned or electrocuted.
Tonight, the temperature is supposed to get down to 24 degrees so we'll close down the door to keep them as warm as possible. We're still averaging 4-5 eggs a day so everything must be working.

Our Blog Continues

Welcome back, we've had to change our blog to this address due to the fact that Google will only allow each email account so many pictures stored without paying a monthly fee. So launching a new blog under Lisa's name is our work around. If you would like to see any of our older stuff, you'll need to go to  bartbarn.blogspot.com for past posts.  Please save this address to your favorites so you can keep up with us.