I'm a little bit country

I never heard of Maryjane Butters until sometime this past August. Seems I was browsing for books at my local library and stumbled across her book entitled "MaryJane’s Ideabook, Cookbook, Lifebook - For the Farmgirl in All of Us." Something about the title appealed to me, so I picked it up and began thumbing through the pages. I knew nothing of an Internet presence, mail order business, or the network of "farmgirl" sisters around the world.

But I know now, at least about the network.  In fact, I decided that I am a farmgirl at heart even though I live in the burbs. There are sisters in every demographic. Cities, out in the country, on a tropical island, in the burbs, like me. I like to imagine a woman in a Manhattan apartment with cafe curtains and ceramic cow creamer on her tiny kitchen table. Or, a lady on Oahu baking every type of banana-nut confection in a vintage oven...

Then there's me, in a Chicago suburb with one rusty birdbath and one failing tomato plant. Sure. I fit in!

I'm sure the birds avoid this like it's a pool of acid.

So I joined this network, at no charge, of course, and immediately signed up to participate in my very first Farmgirl swap: Mail Art.

Simply put, Mail Art is something you make and mail to another sister you've been assigned to. And you receive mail art, too. Then in typical Jenny-fashion I waited too long to start my mail creation. I had an idea in my head and even went so far as to sketch it out. The problem was I needed (in my mind) to actually knit something as part of my mail art. I happened to just come back from a little road trip to see my husband's parents and decided to practice some more Fair Isle knitting in the car. So when I came up with my mail art idea, it naturally involved Fair Isle. Leave it to me to complicate my life by deciding to create something for someone when I don't really know what I'm doing in the first place. But since I was learning, and the month of the mail art swap is September, I figured a piece of mail art that was super cute yet taught the recipient something would be just perfect! I had plans of giving a short, yet interesting lesson on Fair isle. The Shetland Islands, pulling the wool from the sheep instead of shearing, you know. All the basic stuff. But who am I kidding here? I'm knitting with "yarn" from the craft store that is all crammed in my bag just two feet away from a total tangled meltdown. (Technically, it'd be ME having the meltdown.) There were no sheep involved, and if there were sheep involved, they probably came from test tubes rather than the rugged hillside of Fair Isle. I realized soon I'd have to scrap my "teaching" approach and just get something out in the mail.

"Farm-like" basket on my front door...

So I got busy while the kids were at school and quickly knit up a little Fair Isle pouch. I'm not even sure how I decided what patterns to follow in my book. I just knew I had to get this sucker in the mail and it had to be super cute. To inspire even greater "cuteness," I braided some "yarn" together and knotted the ends then forced the trim through knitted stitches to act as a draw string. Thank goodness it worked. I was flying by the seat of my pants, per usual.

 

I made a quick card complete with cut-out sweater and rub on letters. I wrote a little note inside and sent it off to Arizona. Later, I realized, the recipient is probably never "blue" when "summer's through." I mean, we're talking 100+ degree days there. She probably opened her envelope, saw this sweater and choked.  

Ah, but then I got MY mail art in the mail and I realized how happy it made me not only because it's beautiful, but because I got mail from another "farmgirl" at heart. This is what I received.

 It goes perfectly well on the little side table in my kitchen's eating area. It's on a canvas and I just love it.

In the meantime, my tomato plant from downtown Chicago produced fruit but it didn't ripen. Oh well. I tried. I really, really did.

If you are interested in learning more about the Farmgirl Connection, simply follow this link. You will see there are also blogs from every possible farmgirl demographic, if you just want to read instead of participating.

I ran back to my library today to check out the book again, because I recall a project in there I really want to do. I'm going to be making bags (reminiscent of our reusable grocery bags) from calendar pages. And I saved about half a dozen Mary Engelbreit calendars. I'm really not sure when this will happen, but you know it will. I'm sure some other projects will get set aside, as usual...