Farmgirls Have Mobilized

Great first meeting of a gaggle of Farmgirls yesterday at the Little Red Barn!  Rita was embroidering away on her badge, Gail modeled her newest apron, Jill brought blueberry scones, Laurie showed off her incredible shrug design out of old blue jeans (seriously, it's amazing), and Mother Hen Maryann helped us get an idea of all Farmgirls has to offer.  Dina brought some cool recipes, Leslie got to be with us again and Barbara and Marlene came along for the ride.

Here's a run down of what we talked about, for those who were not able to attend:

Meeting times for the rest of the year: Second Friday night of the month - September 10, October 8, November 12 (I just noticed that's the Boerne weekend!), and December 10.  In discussing the meetings, we thought it might be nice to start at 6 PM with potluck for those who can make it, and then the "regular" meeting would start at 7 PM and end at 9 PM.  I mentioned it might be good for us to be on the lookout for folding TV trays to eat and craft on in the barn, rather than trying to manage a large table in that small room.

We talked about some of the badges, their requirements, and how to earn them.  The descriptions of all the badges are on Mary Jane's website.  Small groups might like to form around a common badge project.  Let us know which badges appeal to you and put a team together!

We talked about some classes we'd like to share with each other: Aprons by Gail, Twining by Marlene, Tri-loom weaving, Papermaking, and others.  Looks like Gail's apron class will be the first one on the schedule, stay tuned for details as they are worked out.

 We'll also be talking about field trips we'd like to take, so think about that and make a note of anything that might be fun for the group.

Please comment on this post if you have anything that occurred to you late, or that you'd like to contribute if you weren't able to attend.  Check in here for updates, and we'll see you September 10!

Gail's newest apron is highlighted in these photos.  She's working on getting a class put together to make aprons like this, so let us know if you'd like to be included.

BREAKING: Orientation Meeting This Saturday

 Hi Farmgirls!  Sorry for the last minute decision, but leader Maryann asks if we can have our very first orientation meeting this Saturday, at 2 PM?  We want to get together to put our monthly meetings on the calendar and begin to look at the activities we'd like to start, like

• Sewing our membership badges,
• Planning field trips,
• Choosing merit badge projects
• Swapping patterns, recipes and project ideas...

Not bad for a start.  Comment here or e-mail Maryann (sbswy11@gmail.com) to RSVP either way - we want to know you're interested even if you can't make it on Saturday. 

Farmgirl Up!

Chapter Launch

It's almost time.

We're collecting feedback about the best day of the week, and then we'll pick a date for our Orientation Meeting. (A Friday is way out in front at the moment.) Chapter Leader Maryann has asked me to announce a few items:

• Please go ahead and join the Farmgirls Sisterhood at the Mary Jane's Farm site before our first meeting. This gets your personal materials, including your membership number and badge, on the way.
• Think about activities you'd like to do. Some ideas we've already had include a trip to the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Junk Shopping in some neighboring small towns, Craft Retreat at some cool B&B-type venues, small groups working on badge projects together, etc.
• The overwhelming sentiment of the group is that this will be an adult chapter with adult-only meetings. The Farmgirl Sisterhood has options for younger ladies (Farmerettes and Young Cultivators), and these will need to be developed with separate meeting times and with adult mentors. I'd love to see this get off the ground once our Big Girl group is established. Adult Farmgirls and Young Lady Farmgirls have different needs and interests, and we want to remain sensitive to that.

Now, the next announcement will be the date and time of our Orientation meeting, so watch for that soon.