October and knitting seem made for each other. The first reach for a warm sweater, hat or scarf tends to happen at the same time the leaves change color and sunsets come earlier. Maybe that’s one reason the Creative Knitting Retreat with Mary Germain and the companion Open Knit Studio take place in October…it’s a perfect fit (and you can wear your handknits as you create more)! The garments and accessories worn in class set the tone for the week, along with the projects students plan to work on. The range of expertise Mary Germain brings, and has at the ready to assist with each knitted piece, takes everything to the next level. How wonderful to have Mary as a […]
Making rainbows
Many classes use all the colors of the rainbow (and more!), but in the Spinners’ Color Lab with Deb Jones, students made rainbows of their own, in roving and yarn. Mixing a certain number of “starter colors” into hundreds of other colors kept the rainbows coming. Deb reported 200 skeins of yarn (more than 5,000 grams) and 1,300 grams of roving were dyed in two days. Students worked as partners dyeing solids, gradients, speckles and more. After the dyeing and drying, students spun the singles into one-of-a-kind yarns that might look like keepsakes, but are sure to be used in other fiber works. We hope to see those on a return visit! Happiness is being surrounded by color! Although there […]
Take five
We’ve had a busy start to August with five classes in session during the first ten days of the month. Beadweaving, and then Mixed Media Fiber Jewelry with Francie Broadie, Finding Our Way: A Dyeing Journey with Stephanie Lewis Robertson, Batik with Anne Landre and Coiled Basketry with Lynn Stracka Schuster. Let’s “take five” and see a little of what each class did during their time in the studios. Francie Broadie’s Beadweaving: Lesser Known Stitches class allowed all levels to try beadweaving for the first time or to explore unfamiliar stitches, then in her Mixed Media Fiber Jewelry class, students created one-of-a-kind jewelry using fabric scraps, beads, found objects or pieces of old jewelry, upcycling and combining them in fun […]
Something old, new, borrowed and blue
This age-old proverb usually isn’t associated with classes at Sievers, but it seemed fitting for the pair of classes held last week, Beginning Weaving on a Floor Loom with Susan Frame and Shibori and Indigo Dyeing with Anne Landre. Learning to weave on a floor loom certainly represents something old, or in more meaningful words, a continuity from the past. As you probably know, Sievers all started with looms and weaving. At the start of Susan’s class, Ann shared one of the first ads for Walter Schutz’s plan sheets for a table-sized Sievers Loom from the Fall/Winter 1974-75 McCall’s Needlework & Crafts magazine. Some of the many addresses Walter used for McCall’s ads were: Box 5M, Fifth Avenue, North Bay, […]
A stitch in time
With a group of quilters here for the Open Quilt Studio, along with Shawn Simmons’ Learn to Knit and Crochet class, a lot of stitching took place this past week and weekend. It was a great start to our season of classes! One quilter brought an array of quilt tops to be made into baby quilts which will then be donated to charity. Hanging them on the fence by the barn created a great display. With uninterrupted stitching time, a lot can be accomplished during an Open Quilt Studio. In addition, all types of fabric artwork and quilts are in progress during the week, and brought for show. You can’t help but be inspired! There were a lot of basics […]
2024 Sievers Preview
February 1st will be here in only three weeks! That day, all of our 2024 classes will be open for registration and the class descriptions, along with complete information, will be available on our website. The site will be in “maintenance mode” soon, but available again for registration on February 1. Featured on the cover of the 2024 brochure is the handweaving of Judith Yamamoto. Judie first came to Sievers as a student in Mary Sue Fenner’s 1981 Basic Weaving class and the following year, she offered a class in knitting. Since then, she’s gone on to offer another 100 classes at Sievers and has been a student here 35 times. Thank you, Judie, for being part of Sievers for […]
Knitting season
For a knitter, all seasons are knitting seasons, but it seems especially fitting, and now has almost become tradition at Sievers, to offer a week of knitting in the fall. There’s really no better time to think about cozying up with a project, be it challenging or simply soft and comforting, as the colder weather settles in. One of our two knitting favorites in October is the Creative Knitting Retreat with Mary Germain. Students have the option of a 5-day or 3-day class and they bring spectacular knitting projects to start, or continue, or finish, all with encouragement, instruction and guidance from Mary. We considered ourselves lucky to be able to simply see these beautiful handknits in person! Across the […]
Spinning and weaving rainbows
We set aside this photo of a rainbow taken in early summer just to mark the occasion of two of our most recent classes, Beginning Spinning and Rainbow Dyeing with Deb Jones and Weaving the Rainbow with Judith Yamamoto. A real rainbow is always a treat and so were the rainbow of colors in the studios, as was the work students did in class. It’s been a few years since we’ve had a Beginning Spinning and Rainbow Dyeing class in session, making it especially exciting to see new and beyond beginning students learn the art of spinning and hear the the soft click of the wheels at the start of the day! Spinning, dyeing, carding, blending and plying were all […]
