Here are some pics of our new home during this years peanut harvest that is going on this month. There is also a bounus pic of Gigi our new little pug atop a peanut bail.
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=34150631
Inspiration comes from so many places, sometimes it hits like a ton of bricks. During some recent unpacking I found a drawer full of horse show ribbons my son has won over the years. The big guy is a sophomore in college now and the ribbons are a little harder to win at the collegiate level. But he and his horse have been working there tails off, (LOL, mommy humor) to pull in some ribbons, which translates into team points for the college. So to honer these two fellows I have decorate one of our new tree sets in horse show ribbon rosettes, the boys have recently brought home. Made up of alot of reporspused mens suiting fabric, I thought the double rounds with vintage buttons remind me of that drawer full of rosettes. They also remind me of my father’s suits, he was a big suit wearer.
A little side bar, Country Living magazine had a fabulous display idea for ribbons. A local gal from the Wayne, Illinois area, my old stopping grounds, framed her ribbons. It’s a very cute idea, I think I’ll surprise my rider with one of his own for his new room here in North Carolina.
So a funny little tidbits about the trees names, my sons horse is named Harry as in Harry S. Truman, but around the barn they just call him Harry. So hence Uncle Harry’s Button Trees, enjoy and heres to a Happy Christmas and the boys bringing home more ribbons.
A guest commentary by: Greg Morris ( the hubby)
One of the many things we love since we’ve come here is our ongoing search for the best barbecue, we mean pulled pork. We fell in love with the stuff in Middleburg Virginia, well actual it’s Aldie, Virginia at a place that used to be called Doc’s Barbecue. You could order a bull or heifer (isnt’ that cute!) sandwich pilled high with pulled pork and all topped off with cole slaw, it makes my mouth water just thinking about it. Virginia barbecue is done with red sauce. Eastern North Carolina barbecue is served with no sauce or with a light vinegar sauce on a bun with the cole slaw on the side if at all, but a lot more vinegar.
All barbecue restaurants offer typically offer pulled pork, fried chicken, cole slaw, banana pudding, hush puppies and all the sweet tea you can drink, this is where McDonald’s got the idea. When you’re at any of these places, the sides are also as good as the barbecue it’s self. That’s where the local flavor can be found, collard greens, green beans, hush puppies, and yams. These sides are in just about every mom and pop restaurant in the south and you can make a meal on just those alone as Susan will sometimes do. Susan is also not a real fan of the vinegar barbecue, she is a red sauce gal at heart.
Below is a quick survey of the restaurants we’ve discovered as of this blog posting. Try one when your in the coastal North Carolina area, you’ll love it!
The Barbecue Lodge, Raleigh–Four Stars
The name threw us at first, we thought it was going to be a total dive but it was the first place recommended by our concierge at the Hyatt. When your drive up, it looks like your going to a refurbished Chinese restaurant. We were given our own pitchers of tea, mine sweet, Susan’s unsweeted. We ordered off of the menu, two pulled pork sandwiches with cole slaw an hushpuppies. The food was awesome, especially our banana pudding and peach cobbler deserts which we took with us and ate in the car on the way home.
Parkers Barbecue Restaurant, Greenville–Three Stars
No ambiance, really, non, it’s like eating in a high school cafeteria. I mean really, there are picnic type tables. You order at a counter and wait for your food to come up, then you go sit down. If you want more sweet tea, just go back to the counter. They also offer fried seafood like fish, oysters and shrimp. We haven’t tried these yet, we can’t get past the barbecue.
Strickland Dale, Snow Hill–Three Stars
This is not really a barbecue restaurant but it does offer pulled pork on Thursdays. This is the closets restaurant to our new studio. Unlike the other restaurants, this is an “All-you-can-eat-buffet”. Along with my pulled pork, I also LOVE their fried chicken, which is truly the best in the area (or anywhere else) that I have ever tasted. I think their secret is the batter.
There are more barbecue places in the area that we’ve tried but these are our top picks. More to come on this subject soon!
G+S
Ever feel like a nobody, well this week I sure was. You feel like can’t do a single thing in North Carolina with out a Social Security card. I lost mine 30 years ago and have gotten along fine in Chicago for all this time, can you imagine! But in NC you can’t get a new drivers license, open a bank account, and one thing rolls into another after that. So as of right now I’m just like Jessica Tandy in “Driving Miss Daisy”, sorry could not help the southern tie-in. Mr Greg, who now has his NC license is doing all the driving. And as a side bar to this whole thing, when I did go in to get a new SS card, the lady behind the bullet proof glass… say’s “so do you really want Havens on your new card? And I say “of course my legal name Havens-Morris”. And to try and add levity to the monument I said ” It was all the rage in the 80’s” and she looks back at me and says, “well I guess I’m not that liberated, being a plain jane was fine for me”. Lets face it one does not go to Social Security office for a boost in self confidence.
That’s all from the back seat right now!
We are pleased to announce the big news in the world of Middleburg. We have moved South! Yes, 1000 miles away from Chicago, to a lovely old farm house in North Carolina. We bought the house in September and have been here now just about three weeks. My son will point to an old house every now and then and say “Mom, that looks like a fixer-upper for you.” Well honey, let me tell you, I got one of those. We have always wanted to fix up a house, I love the idea of bringing back something to it’s original grandeur.
The house, called Nehucky Farm was originally built circa 1880 as a simple 3 room structure. Over the years, it’s been added on to up to its current size, a 3000 square foot, two over two, 20th Century American farmhouse. It was the main house for a prominent local planter that at one time owned over 2000 acres.
Today I’ll only tell you the pluses: Great high ceilings and big rooms, we are only 4 hours from our son in college, we look out on endless fields, we have huge pecan trees and great old boxwoods, two great barn/out buildings plus two others and 6 fireplaces. We have DSL in the country and don’t have to dial area codes any more! What more could a gal want…
And with all this, I forgot to say my husband Greg, who was born a southerner, has now joined the team full-time since July. He is a huge creative help, one of the few people who’s creative opinion that really matters to me.
I hope to add more soon about my Southern experiences, I’m really having a lot of fun. Oh and did I mention the weather is great? It’s been in the 70’s and 80’s all this past week!
We are in count down, to our event here at Middleburg! Saturday is fast approching.
Everything is coming together, the garden beds were mulched the other day and the little Bull Barn Tavern is turning out to be the show stealer. It’s even getting a rustic chandalier today. The Mount Vernon booth is getting final painting as well, if the rain would only stay away, it will all dry.
Here is a sneak peak at the Paul Reaver piece, he is all fabric riding a papier mache horse.
If you still need a ticket to this event please go to our link: http://www.middleburgfolkartstudio.com/open_house.html
It’s going to be a whale of a time!
This is our sweet Bluebird Wedding cake topper!
Etsy has chosen our Blue Bird Wedding Cake Topper to be included in the voting for Best Topper!
Voting is open until Monday, June 8th.
Here is the vote link!
http://www.etsy.com/voter_list.php?ref=voter&room_id=53
As we say in Chicago, “Vote Early and vote often”. 
Thanks Friends of Middleburg! –Susan
It all started with a grand plan that got grander, pick up the son from college, do a show, build Mt. Vernon, have a historic jacket custom made, make a petticoat, a bum roll and 40 new pieces. Sounds like a weekend to me. Did I happen to say son is in Virginia, 700+ miles away, show is in Newport News another 200+miles, Mt. Vernon is being built from foam and sticks, and I have all the parts of the 40 pieces in the studio waiting for me to assemble. All in all I’m a optimist and feel everything you want can be done if you just try hard enough. Well we tried, through the down pours of rain here in Illinois we worked every weekend all weekend long, and still we failed. But failure should never detour one, you can learn so much, and just the effort of trying produces some great things!
Hubby is working like a madman these days at the real job, so the new historic line we are calling “Coach House Heritage” will launch slower than expected, some pieces are up on Etsy now and others we will be adding over the next week to our site and Etsy. It will feature pieces inspired from the mid 1700’s through the Civil War. Lots of new hard-stuffed, fabric pieces in very limited editions of 25, which are all hand-painted. Very classic papier mache pieces, soldiers with wired on arms, and pieces which combine papier mache with fabric in one piece.
We will be re-erecting Mount Vernon here some time in mid June and having a show right here on our studio grounds. I’ll post some dates and details soon so you all can come out.
But my trip to Virginia was great and wanted to share some wonderful parts with you all.
American in Paris–excellent antique shop, in Paris Virginia. Call first and the darling owner Carol will open it up to you. Paris, VA is a very small, quaint town nestled in the Blueridge Mountains. Here is their link so you can pre-shop, www.american-in-paris-antiques.com
The Red Fox Inn-a quick lunch and one of my most favorite places, located in Middleburg Virginia, which had to include peanut soup.
Oh yes and the boy child is now home and my family is all here again. And really, what more could one ask for?
Some have seen her around already in photos on the website and others in person. But I just wanted to introduce you all to the newest member of the Middleburg family, our black pug dog, Gigi. This one is for my daughter. Our other pug is VeeVee, and she became our sons from the beginging. We love great name for pets so we just continued the naming in the same vain. My husband always gives the dogs a middle name and what better than Channel, so her full name is Gigi Channel. She is now 11 weeks old and full of energy.
We’ll soon be looking for some fab collars, so here are some of my daughter picks from Etsy.
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We’ll keep adding puppy pictures from time to time and you can watch her grow!
As an artist I have been thinking about this issue for over a year now and considering what I could do that was more than just making a donation. Knowing I’m just a little tiny voice who is here shouting and there are so many bigger voices shouting awareness. But all the voices coming together is only that much louder, that much stronger so that was my start. I know for me it was a matter of creating something bigger than me. A way to share my art, to hand-make something from my heart to give others a little hope, and extra ounce of courage, a smile or a feel-good moment. Art transcends so many things, the feeling I can bring to someone is always a driving force behind what I create. Winter for me is such a reflective time, while I’ve known of people who have been diagnosed, some who have survived, the impact in not personal..not yet. So I created these pieces so maybe we can offset it becoming personal, so that number of 1 in 8 people can go down.
If you too would like to donate here is the link: http://ww5.komen.org/donate/donate.html
