another trip to the berkshires

this past august we took a short trip to the berkshires. you may remember last time where we visited the hancock shaker village, which was amazing.

we stayed at the old inn on the green again and it was just as wonderful as we remembered. i wish i had pictures of the food, but sometimes you just don't want to be the idiot taking out their camera at dinner. just know that it is incredible.

this time we took this dummy with us. i think he enjoyed himself. 

 we made sure to remember to bring bar and snack items since the closest store is quite a hike away.

 we took went on a hike around a lake in beartown state forest. unfortunately we didn't see any actual real bears, just our own mozzie bear.

 i could get used to waking up to this spread every morning.

with this view. 

and they even have their own chocolate lab. moz wouldn't have been this well behaved, so he didn't get to go to breakfast. 

lunch at the southfield store is also always a treat. 

pasta maker

as i've mentioned before, my husband dave is a killer cook. he made some pasta the other day that was delicious.

while he was making pasta, i was watching. and maybe drinking a little jack and coke. actually i'm lying, it was evan williams and coke. haha. 

i'm a lucky girl. 

a little turquoise spray paint

the day after we moved in i found this little side table sitting by the side of the road in our neighborhood. i snagged it, because i loved the lines of it. i picked up some spray paint and made it turquoise. have you seen the selection available now for spray paint? it's great! lots of very cool colors.

before:

after:

and i won't mention the turquoise spray paint remnants in our carport due to overspray. oops. :-( anyone know how to remove it?

and here it is with our vintage fireplace outside. my dad picked this up as a trade on one of his jobs. we LOVE it. thanks dad!!

thrifted patchwork quilt

a friend of mine gave me a thrifted patchwork quilt top that she wanted me to turn into a quilt. the patchwork was gorgeous and was made by lots of different fabrics that somehow all worked together.
i finally finished it this week (she only gave it to me like 2 or 3 years ago, oops). here are some pics.

the patchwork was 100% hand sewn. i felt bad using my machine to finish it, but i didn't want this quilt to take another 3 years.

 but i do hand bind the binding. i picked a bright color for the binding to make it pop.