Friday afternoon we welcomed Betty Glynn Carlson and her class of Navajo Weavers to start our thirty-sixth season of classes. The sound of voices in the studio, the colors of the wools and the doors open to the shop are a great reward after a long winter. Students have warped their Navajo looms and have started weaving. Photos from the first day of classes show quite a difference through the years. However, the sunny faces of daffodils are blooming behind the Sophie Studio and greeting visitors to the shop. Two upcoming classes will take us through the month of May. ‘Stained Glass’ Sweater Jacket with Jeanette Biederman and Chair Caning with Rich Prange both run May 28 – […]
A View of the Shop
All hands have been busy brainstorming, creating displays and arranging the handmade items, yarns and books for the shop. With our first guests this weekend, we plan to open the doors to the public on Friday, May 2 and Saturday, May 3. After that, we will be adding other goodies and will officially re-open the shop on a daily basis for the season on Friday, May 16.
Hidden Improvements
We’ve been busy preparing for the start of our 2014 season. Our first guests will be members of the Sheboygan Shuttlecraft Guild who will be renting the studio and staying with us the weekend of May 2-4. Last year, some of our improvements were quite visible, for example, the new windows and cedar shingles on the south side of the dorm. This year, some of what we’ve done is less noticeable, so here’s a sneak peek behind the scenes: We’ll see you soon!
April (Snow) Showers Bring May Flowers?
My intent here was to provide a short-term time lapse view of the Walter Studio in the midst of a spring thaw. What we have today though, is Spring going in the wrong direction. Perhaps checking the weather forecast a little closer may have convinced me to postpone this posting until later, but here we are… There have been a few signs of Spring on the Island and at Sievers. We welcome back the Sandhill cranes… Yarns, books and other items for the shop have been arriving daily. New this year will be yarns from Isager Yarns and Madelinetosh. We are arranging all these lovely things now so they can greet you when the calendar turns to May!
Photos from the Past
We recently received a number of photos from Al Hanson, originally taken in the early 1950’s of what is now the Sievers Shop. After the Island schools consolidated in 1945 and the building was no longer used as a one-room schoolhouse, it was sold in 1948 to his parents Bill and Vi Hanson who owned and operated “Vi and Bill’s”, a tavern and restaurant (the fish-fry kitchen was half of the yarn shop). What is now the Teacher’s Cottage and a shed behind the main building were cabins rented to fisherman. Later Vi ran the business as a retail shop. Ann and Cindra remember moccasins, Native American souvenirs, models, knickknacks and packaged liquor. Before this business venture, the Hanson’s owned Vi and Bill’s Fishing Lodge in West […]
Quilts of Valor Event
Preparations for this year’s Quilts of Valor event began last year, even before the final stitches in those quilts were sewn. Starting last Tuesday and continuing to Saturday, teams of coaches and rookies led by Ellen Graf and Marianne Fons met in the Sievers studio to offer their thanks to service members through the work of their hands and hearts. This year, Sievers crewmembers Ann Young and Connie Westbrook participated. Because this writer was off-Island during the Quilts of Valor event, Dick Purinton, the official photographer, graciously offered his permission to provide this link to his article on the Ferry Cabin News. http://www.ferrycabinnews.blogspot.com/
In Your Mailbox
We’ve spent the past few days putting labels and stamps on the new Sievers print brochure. Not only did we update the website in 2014, but also completely changed our brochure making it smaller but printing it for the first time in full color. Thanks go to our friends at Inside the Door Graphic Design in Baileys Harbor, WI and Innovative Printing in Sister Bay, WI for their help with our brochure. The files don’t go back far enough to tell you how long they have taken care of our printing needs! If you didn’t get a printed copy and would like one sent to you or a friend, please let us know. If you’d like to see the brochure online, follow this link to our Door County Visitors Bureau […]
Welcome to the New Website
We have made quite a leap forward with the hard work and help of our friends at 3W Design Media in Sister Bay, WI both in the design of our new website (what you see) and all the many intricacies within the site (what you don’t see). If you looked at the website only on February 1st or in the first week of registration, we invite you back to look at it again. There are some new features and some changes have been made that come after any new online adventure. We hope you like the new format. Since registration opened on February 1st, over 225 students have signed up for one or more classes. Thank you, and yes, summer will arrive one of these days! As we were hearing from […]
