This summer Rob purchased tomato, cuke and a variety of pepper plants and started his first garden. As an engineer, Rob immediately assessed the environment and began to make modifications for potential maximum yield. After much discussion regarding pot size; he...
Between all the county and state fairs and the five Midwest quilt museums; we’re not living in the Corn Belt, we’re living in the ‘Quilt Belt!’ Some of the more venerable Midwestern summertime activities in rural communities are county and...
Flowery Cloth: Paj Ntaub November 2015 marks the 40th anniversary of the Hmong migration to Minnesota following the war in Southeast Asia. Today, the Twin Cities metro area is home to 66,000 Hmong, the largest urban Hmong population in the United States. Developed in...
Beer, batts and bikes I realize those items may be listed in the wrong order as this story is about Midwest woolen mills but there is a happy association between local fiber (in the sheep variety), local fiber (in the beverage variety) and local bike trails. Each of...
Thank you for attending my talk at the Wisconsin Museum of Quilt & Fiber Arts University Days! I really enjoyed meeting you and sharing my stories! I made a reference list with links and locations of the places around the Midwest I presented. It’s in PDF...
Fiber and yarn bombs showoff the Cedarburg-Grafton-Thiensville, WI community as fiber artists get ready to host their first event marking the beginning of the Cedarburg Spur! (This post is sponsored by the Cedarburg Spur Fiber Arts Trail members.) Cedarburg Spur yarn...
(This post is sponsored by the Cedarburg Spur Fiber Arts Trail members.) Let’s talk about mixed media, hard surfaces and an award winning art gallery. The featured artists are Laura Weber of Weber Arts and The Pink Llama Gallery in downtown Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Laura...
August is the month when reality starts to creep in around the doorway. For those who don’t count summer weekends, or minutes of lost daily sunshine like the really obnoxious billboard posted on I-394, August typically heralds reckonings of “summer is almost gone!” We...
Did Rev. Elaine Marsh and Congregant Mary Carson know back in 1968 they were starting a 40-year mission that would include hundreds of church women, a famous illustrator and result in four huge embroidered works of art depicting their church history? Probably not, but...
The subject of this newsletter was not intended to broadcast, “All Things Wisconsin!” but sometimes that’s how it works. It’s easy to proclaim the Cheesehead State’s virtues; after all I’ve been a Packer fan all of my life (pre first grade does not count). Having...
About a month ago, I was looking for some Midwest scenes for a story I was working on and asked my Dad for a little assistance. He’s taken pictures as long as I can remember, employing family members to carry the extra lens and camera bag stocked with black and gold...
In this fast moving world, the most sane thing a person can do is to make something with their hands. I know this isn’t a new thought, there are artists, artisans and crafters everywhere who have echoed that sentiment throughout time. We are at an interesting juncture...
By all accounts Hwy 1 in rural Johnson County, Iowa is a great road for cycling. It’s a hill and dale kind of road with curves and long vistas that stretch out over checkerboard farm fields. Groomed farmsteads hug the road offering up antique shops in converted...
(Elkhart, IN ) — (Updated post 5/18/2017) This is the time of year when summer travel plans are being made with the happy anticipation of simply going somewhere else for awhile. In my growing up years, the signal was a few dropped comments between my parents at...
So, what did I think as I drove northwest out of the Twin Cities? To me, Bemidji is an iconic place forever embedded in Minnesota mystique. I can hear the drums beating out the familiar jingle, “in the land of sky blue waters…” Part of me was super excited to go north...
When, in casual conversation, I bring up the subject of macramé, those who are ‘of an age’ will smile, chuckle and recall candle wax dripping down the sides of a green wine bottle wrapped in hemp macramé or visualize an air fern hanging in a south facing window. So...
At the last minute a couple of people cancelled and I was asked to join a group from the Minnesota Machine Knitters Collaborative at the Minnesota History Center today. If you haven’t been to the MN Historical Society’s History Center, it’s worth...
