End of the Garden

 Our garden has finally come to an end.  We have been really lucky to get as much out of it as we did considering how hot and dry it has been this summer.  The bell peppers were the last to go, so I decided to try something new.  I have a new recipe book on preserving and canning and I found a recipe for roasted and canned bell peppers.  I thought might as well give it a try.  Here is the first batch of peppers roasting away.

Here they are roasted and cooling.

Cooled, seeded and sliced.

The first two cans of peppers!!  This was really easy to do, time consuming.  You had to wait for the peppers to cool before you could remove the skins, which took a while.  After removing the skin, seeds and slicing them, you add olive oil, salt, pepper and Italian seasoning.  Very easy.  Would definitely do this again.

Finally some sewing

 After going over to the dark side and getting not one but two ereaders I decided I needed to make a case for my Kindle.  When DH got me a Nook for our anniversary, he also got me a case which makes me feel like I am reading a book.  When he won the Kindle, he didn't win a case.  I looked at them but decided they were just too expensive and thought that surely I could make one.  I had a had time deciding on the fabric to use, then remembered that I had cowgirl fabric left from a quilt I made last year.  It took two tries for me to get the size right.  The first one that I made was too small. 

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I made two inside pockets out of coordinating fabric.  I love the way it turned out.  

Pigs Everywhere

 It has been a while since I posted, probably because I am exhausted every night when I get home from school.  That also means that there is little or no sewing happening at my house,  hopefully this will change soon.  Since there is no sewing to show, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to show off some of my pigs.  It seems like pigs are everywhere, big pigs,small pigs, pink ones, blue ones, yellow ones, stuffed ones, painted ones, ceramic ones.  They are every where.  The pig painting at the left was in a restaurant we visiting while on vacation in Waynesville, North Carolina.  Loved it but not at 250.00.

Piggy bank in a fabric shop in Dahalonega.

Stanley the Salt Pig

Collection of my pigs at school

Piggy Timer, thanks Kristie.

Piggies at my house. 

Ceramic piggy that DH uses for his teabags.

I don't have pigs every where it just looks like it.  I grew up on a farm where we had pigs, and I was always fascinated with them.  I even sang to them.  My brother always told me that is why the meat was sometimes tough.  (and if you have ever heard me sing you would agree).  When I became a media specialist and discovered Olivia, my love for pigs was reborn.  I try to keep them all at school, it is something that I can keep there and share with the students.  However, I do have a few at home that DH has given me over the years.  My favorite one is a little one that was under our Christmas tree a few years ago, wearing a beautiful ring for a bracelet.  I could get used to that kind of pig.  Is there any animal that you notice where ever you are? 

Going to the East Cobb

Just found out last week that I will have a quilt in the East Cobb Quilt Show.  I am so excited.  This is the first time I have entered a quilt in a show and it was accepted.  I am glad that friend, Becky, talked me into entering this one. The show is the third weekend  in September if you are in the area check it out. 

Newest member of the family

Meet the newest member of the Debord family, Too Slow.  (as in he was too slow and got shot).  DH shot this one last fall and just picked him up from the taxidermist yesterday.  He joins the other two at this house and two more at the cabin.  I guess I have gotten used to them and really don't pay any attention to them anymore, only when someone comes over for the first time and I see their eyes getting wide to I think about them.

New Applique BOM

Dawn over at Linen Closet Quilts has started another great block of the month, it is called Heartfield and I couldn't help  myself.  I loved the last one that she did and immediately knew that I wanted to do this one.  I am even branching out of my comfort zone.  I decided to mix batiks and traditional prints.  I hope it comes out ok.  I finished the first block last night and I am very pleased with it.  The stem, and the flower backgrounds are batiks and the other pieces are traditional prints.  The background is a white tone on tone.  I have decided that for all of block backgrounds I am going to use a different white tone on tone fabric.  I will either really like it or not. 

Back to Work

I can't believe that it is already time to go back to work.  It seems like every year the summer goes by more quickly.  DH and I were able to get away for part of last week to North Carolina.  We had a great time, just getting away from everything.  One thing, however, that we didn't get away from was the heat, it was very hot there.  We spent the first night away in Waynesville, NC.  It is a very neat little town.  The photo to the left is of the museum  there.  I loved the quilt on the wall, there are quilts like this all through North Carolina. We spent one night in Waynesville, then headed to Boone, NC.  We did some hiking there.  We had to check out the newest state park, Elk Knob, there are some great hiking trails there. 

We stopped at Linville Caverns on the way to Boone.  It was very interesting and very cold, which felt great.

View from the Blue Ridge Parkway, it is so beautiful.

 This is the Moses Cone house off of the parkway around Blowing Rock.  It was beautiful.  The house was built in the late 1800's by Moses Cone, the denim baron.  It is incredible to me the wealth that some of the people of that time had.  To imagine that this house was built as a summer home in what at that time was the wilds of North Carolina just astounds me.

From Boone we headed to Asheville, for Belle Chere the arts and music festival.  It was a lot of fun, too bad I had to come back and head off to work on Monday morning.  I guess DH and I were not ready to head back to the real world we both forgot to set the alarm clock, and I just barely made it to  work on time.  I am exhausted now, and there probably won't be any sewing in my future this week.