Colors of Madison

I just got back from a really fun trip visiting my son and his wife, Keith and Rachel, in Madison, WI. They have a huge vegetable and flower garden bursting with tomatoes, pumpkins, sunflowers, herbs and vegetables. The sunflowers are 14 feet tall and seeded themselves from last year!

The pumpkins are starting to bring in fall and the last of the tomatoes are kissing summer good-bye.

We had delicious sandwiches with thick slabs of homegrown tomatoes, basil and mozzarella, with one of Keith's crispy homemade dill pickles on the side. Later, mint from the garden went into mojitos.

And the chickens tried their best to get into the garden.

My first full day there we hiked along the Ice Age National Scenic Trail, but that was the last hike because the rest of the visit was unusually hot and humid. The trail winds for more than 1,000 miles throughout the state, following the edge of the last continental glacier in Wisconsin.

 

It took us through woods and along the edges of prairies, past colorful wildflowers and leafy green trees.

When it was too hot to hike, I went to my favorite quilt shop in the area, Blue Bar Quilts.

Here's my haul. I almost bought the "Boro & Sashiko" book but talked myself out of it because I already have two books on that subject.

There were wonderfully colorful prints ...

... felted wool and hand-dyes.

The store has a rotating gallery of quilts. The current exhibit honors the late Nancy Zieman of the "Sewing With Nancy" television show.

In the same shopping strip as Blue Bar is a store whose name I forget, but it had a great card selection where I bought this postcard:

The sunset painted the sky in swathes of orange. The morning I left the prairie was blanketed with low fog at the beginning of another hot and steamy day. 

Have a colorful day