Peach Tart

My cousin went to the Sand Hills of NC last week and brought back some peaches. I froze some and then we have had them cut up on cereal each morning. I decided to make this tart. Believe me, it is easy or I could not have done it. It worked out good for me because it was done in layers. I cooked the crust and rested while it cooled. Then I made the cream cheese mixture and put it on the crust. I placed it in the refrigerator to set up while I rested some more. Then I did the glaze. I sliced just enough peaches to make a layer and then poured the glaze on top. I did not cut it for about 3 to 4 hours. I think it is right pretty, if I must say so myself! Ha! It sure was good.

Ingredients

1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup cold butter, cut up
3/4 cup granulated sugar, divided
1 Tbsp. Cornstarch
1 pkg (3oz.) Jello-O Peach Flavor Gelatin
1/2 cup water
1 pkg. (8 oz.) Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened
1 Tbsp. peach marmalade
1 cup thawed Cool Whip topping
peaches, peeled and thinly sliced

DIRECTIONS

HEAT oven to 350 degrees F.

MIX flour and brown sugar in medium bowl. Cut in butter with pastry blender or 2 knives until mixture resembles coarse crumbs, knead mixture well to form dough. Press onto bottom and up sides of 10-inch tart pan with removable bottom. Bake 15 minutes or until golden brown; cool completely.

MEANWHILE, bring 1/2 cup granulated sugar, conrstarch, gelatin mix and water to boil in saucepan, stirring occasionally, cook and stir 2 minutes. Cool 20 minutes.

BEAT cream cheese, remaining granulated sugar and marmalade in large bowl with mixer until well blended. Whisk in Cool Whip; spread onto crust. Top with peaches and gelatin glaze. Refrigerate 3 hours or until chilled. Remove tart from pan before serving.

I hope you enjoy it!
Love,
Marie

For My Love of Quilts....

I love quilts and collect them. I wish I was physically able to make quilts, but I am not. These quilts were placed on the rungs of a ladder that a friend made just for me to display quilts. Would you believe, my neighbor did not want these quilts and thought they were dirty and she was going to throw them away. Her aunt had died and she was cleaning out her house. I told her not to dare throw them away--to me they are beautiful! There is a lot of time and love worked into these quilts. I also have a collection of quilt tops my grandmother made and never got them quilted. I have these packed away. I guess I should have them finished.

This is the first quilt I made and this was done in

the 1960's. I did the stamped on cross stitch and

then a group of ladies guilted it one summer for

me at The Sword of Peace, a local out-door drama.

They had it set up as a demonstation as the people came for the drama each night.

Then I did this candlewick spread in the 1970's. I bleached muslin, cut it into large squares, and then copied my pattern onto each square. When I had finished the squares, I had them sewn together. I had planned to do a crochet edge around it and never did. I went to the International Quilt Show in Greensboro in the mid 1990's and met a lady that did long-arm quilting and she took it to Virginia and quilted it for me. I love the way it turned out.

My yo-yo quilt is done in shades of pink and greens. I designed it to resemble Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt.

The Catheral Window Quilt. It is done with un-bleached muslin from JoAnn's. My daughter went with me to a local quilt shop and we picked out this fabric of flowers. I did the whole quilt with just this one fabric and I think it came out beautiful, if I must say. Ha! This will be my daughter's quilt when I am through enjoying it.

This a a baby quilt

that I did to go in my

Grandmother's Box. I

bought the panel at Hobby Lobby. I sewed a border on it and did a binding. I quilted each block and then on the border, I drew letters of the alphabet and quilted them. I scanned some of the fabric and then designed this label in my PSP and placed it on the

back of the quilt.

I started paper piece quilting. This is my first attempt. I made these crazy patch squares and then I embroidered stitches on the seams. I made these into pillowcases to use on the backs of the rockers on our front porch.

Below is a Hunter's Star square that I did by paper piecing. I did some others and made them into throw pillows.

This is a paper piece log cabin block that I made into a Christmas wall hanging. Below is the label I created for it.

I hope you have enjoyed viewing my quilts.

Love,

Marie

I am now a published author!

I had been looking for a while about getting my blog published into a book. I would look and then not be sure if it was worth the money or not. Well a fellow blogger, Katy at County Blossom, shared her book published from her blog. If you have never visited her blog, you should! So, I made the decision to order one done of mine and I placed the order on July 5, 2010. My husband announced this morning that I had a book in the mail and I thought it was a Miss Julia book that I had ordered. He opened it up and yelled that it was my blog book--boy was that fast! If you are interested in publishing your creativity, go to Blog2Print and check it out!

The cover of the book is basically what you see first as you visit my blog.

Our son is the person that encouraged me to start a blog. He had helped me around 1997 to get started with the computer and I develped a website on Geocities with the same title, Marie's Home and Hobbies. Geocities was ending their free websites last year, so with the help of my son, while he was home from CA on vacation, I began this blog. Below is the dedication to him in the book.

Below are a couple of pages from the book to give you an idea of what to expect. I had mine done to inclue all comments because they meant so much to me.

Above, show some of my husband's wonderful flowers. Below is a trip we took to Mt Airy and Mayberry during the Fall when the leaves were at their peak.

Good Luck with your book if you decide to do it. It was a bit pricy doing it hardback, but I think it is worth it.

Love,

Marie

Tea Cup Bird Feeder

Below are two tea cup bird feeders my husband helped me make. I bought a box of old dishes at a sale and found these cups and saucers. I thought they were so pretty but they were really stained. I had an old glass bed vase and a friend gave me one of hers that she had stuck back. My husband sanded the bottom of the cup and then glued it to the saucer. He also sanded the bottom and the saucer and the vase and glued them together. He cut a dowel into and drove it into the ground and put the vase on it. Now the vase can just be lifted off the dowel to clean it. I am wanted to get some song bird seeds to go it.

God Bless American

Peach Dessert

North Carolina peaches are in! My sister took us to the Farmer's Market last weekend and we bought our first peaches of the year. Below is a
recipe that a friend shared with me.

3 cups sliced peaches

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 cup sifted plain flour

1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 beaten egg

6 tablespoons of melted butter

Place sliced peaches in a deep-dish pie plate and sprinkle with lemon juice.

Mix dry ingredients and then stir in beaten egg until crumbly. Sprinkle this mixture

over the peaches and then top with melted butter. Bake at 350 for 35 to 40 minutes.

Enjoy!

Love,

Marie

Hooray for the Red, White, and Blue!

I made this to hang on the wall on our front porch. The base is a 14-inch diameter green Styrofoam wreath. I purchased 1/2 yard of red, white, and blue $2 per yard fabric from Wal-Mart. I used my rotary cutter and cut the fabric into 3-inch squares. I gathered up each square around a size 7 steel crochet hook using the blunt end and pushed it into the wreath. You can use a small screwdriver. The directions said to use glue, but I did not find it necessary. I made the bow using left-over fabric.

Flowers from the Past

Before my husband's MS became as bad as it is today, his joy was working in his garden and flowers. I wanted to share some novel ways he grew his flowers.


We were riding along a county road and I spied this bed. There was a sign that said to take it if you wanted it. I had my husband turn around and get it. He put it in the garden and each year I had my "flower bed". I used different flowers trying to make it look like a quilt. The picture to the left was planted with two different shades of pink petunias.




The bed to the right was done with yellow marigolds and purple ageratum.













The bed to the left was planted with red and white salvia, yellow marigolds, and purple ageratum.











Below are two different years of the rocker being decorated. I found this rocker in my grandaddy's garage

The chair to the right was also found in my granddaddy's garage. The woven bottom was already gone which left the hole for the planter.




















I collect birdhouses. My husband painted an old ladder and placed some of my collection on the ladder along with some potted plants

Dresses for girls in Haiti Orphanage...

I was surfing blogs shortly after the earthquake in Haiti and came across a blog that was requesting pillowcases or women to make pillowcase dresses. These dresses were to be made and would be taken to Haiti by people going there on mission trips. I mentioned it to my friend, Naydine, and before I knew it, her line dance group took up the cause. The dancers collected pillow cases and all the notions that it would take to make them. These ladies met at the local art center on Fridays and worked from early morning until around four in the afternoon. There was a community spirit from people offering them food on the days they sewed, money for notions they needed, and postage to mail the boxes of finished dresses. Between the Princess Project and New Directions International, they funished over three hundred dresses. Another church requested some for their mission work in Guatamala and they were given 122. The group is continuing to make dresses. There were cotton panties also donated to go with the dresses.

Above are pictures of some of the little girls as they received their dresses that a group from New Directions International took over a few weeks ago. Most of the little girls are holding their dresses up in front of them. Aren't they so cute with their dresses and snazzy glasses!!!!!!!!! There is also a picture of Naydine with some of the dresses.

Love,

Marie

Prayers, please!

For those who have missed my posts, I just want to say "thank you". My husband and I both are having difficult physical problems right now. I am struggling just to take care of what I need to. I keep saying "this too shall pass". I will be back up and running soon, I pray.
Thanks!
Marie

Spring view at Melville Hill

Hope you enjoyed a look at some of our Spring views. I wish the beds were cleaned out but it is difficult for my husband with his MS to stay on top of every thing. In the bottom picture, he did get out on his scooter this morning and pulled up some weeds but as you can see, he gave out before he could get them up.

Love,

Marie

I WON!!!!!!!

The past two weeks have been a nightmare with my computer. This wonderful machine was bought the day after Christmas and has been giving problems off and on ever since. The other day, my DH finally had it up and running and I went to visit my blog. Much to my surprise, there was a comment from Faye at Behind My Picket Fence. Mr. Picket Fence had chosen #9 to win a pretty spring pillow. Wow! I was the lucky one. I love pillows on the bed so I placed my new pillow there--it is the one with tulips with the word tulips on it. If you have not visited Faye's blog, you have missed a treat. Go to my sidebar on the left and click on her blog. She is one talented lady with lots of talented friends. She has the most wonderful way with words. I can imagine it would be a hoot to meet her in person. Tell her that I sent you.

Thanks again for my wonderful gift!

Love you,

Marie

PS: Since I had found out that I won the pillow, we have made a complete restore on my computer twice. I just hope it will work this time!

More Knitting by my Great-Great Grandmother, Angeline

Angeline knitted six of these bedspreads, one for each of her children. This was done sometime between 1855 when she was married and 1908 at her death. She knitted it in squares and joined them. The yarn was spun by her, most likely. This was probably done by lamp or candle light.

This view of the spread shows the crochet border that was added to the knitted spread. We do not know who did that but it is beautiful.

This is my sister, the great-great granddaughter of Angeline, holding the bedspread.

Easter through the house...

This is my kitchen table finished. My mother walked .7 of a mile every morning. The year before she died, as she took her daily walk, she left one of the five bunnies in the yard by a bunny that I had on display. She did this as a surprise for me. The eggs on the tree are crochet and also the eggs in the grass.

These decorations are on a bookcase that I inherited at my mother's death.

This is the decoration in the center of the den bay window.

This is not a clear picture but it is done in pastel color with rabbits on every tier. I don't have candles, but then I never would light them.

Cross stitch eggs are hanging in the side window of our bay in the den.

This is a combination of cross stitch and hardanger and I have it on the fridge door.

I am sorry that the above picture it out of focus. I have these cross stitch pieces done for each month.

Cross stitch piece that I placed in a wooden hoop, added lace and ribbon. This is hanging on our back door.