Visitors To The Farm...

Susan and Me

Sunday was a perfect day here at the farm. The weather was sunny and warm, and the breezes moved through the house as they have for the past century.

My dear friend, Susan Slaton (of Wazoo Quilter) arrived in the afternoon with her daughter, Jennifer and friend, Georgia. Susan is a Wisconsin girl that I met when we were both quilt guild members in Florida, and I've written about her and our friendship before. She moved to Georgia a year or two before I moved back to Wisconsin. I hadn't seen her for at least two years, and she was in Wisconsin to see family and friends. I'm so glad seeing me was on her agenda while she was here.

I gave her a tour of the farmhouse, a few Hickory Hill Farm treats and we were able to just sit and catch up for a little while. (Susan gave me a lovely memento of her vacation here, too.) Her daughter, Jenny, is delightful and a carbon copy of her mama. She still lives in Wisconsin, about an hour from me.

Georgia, also a Wisconsin resident, went with Susan and Jenny to a James Taylor/Bonnie Raitt concert on Saturday night, so we talked about that. James Taylor's drummer is Steve Gadd - a favorite of Handsome and mine. She told me that he'll be performing with Taylor/Raitt at Summerfest this week. That may be just enough to get us to this year's festival in Milwaukee! We have to check our schedules right away.

Of course, there were more pictures during our visit. Tag is going to talk about them tomorrow, too. I'm pretty sure he and Bella were as sad to see them leave as I was! I'm so glad that Susan took time out of her schedule because she's one of my favorite people, and I'll look forward to seeing her again.

Working On "Twilight Garden" Blocks

After Susan, Georgia and Jenny left, I went up to the studio to start working on my Summer Block of the Week project from Primitive Gatherings. I began by cutting twelve blocks from the beautiful blue/gray flannel fabric. This will be the background for all my blocks.

"Twilight Garden" Wools

 

I also traced the design placement onto Swedish Tracing Paper. Some of the participants in this project used plexiglas (or their square plexi rulers) and a dry-erase marker to trace their layouts, but I don't have either large enough to do that (yet). A benefit is that all you have to do is clean off the plexiglas and you can trace the next design. Until I get a piece of plexiglas large enough to trace my design, I'm going to use the tracing paper.

 

These are examples of the wools that will be used to create the designs for my blocks. Each kit I receive in future weeks will include the wools for that weeks' block. I'll continue working on mine  during the week. In fact, tomorrow I'll be with the ladies from the Primitive Gatherings Sit & Sew group, so I'm sure I'll see more of these kits in progress. They'll be motivation to get busy with mine!