Those words were used 40 years ago by Walter Schutz in the first Sievers School class brochure and for many years that followed. They’re still true today! Each year since classes began in 1979, we await meeting new students and reconnecting with returning student-friends. Not only are we waiting for you, so are the instructors, fellow classmates, the studios, dormitory, favorite Washington Island places and the Sievers shop. As one way to mark our 40th anniversary year, we’ll occasionally share some of the “Sievers Stories” collected last year from students. In one, Kathy B. wrote, “I came for my first class in 1989 and took beginning spinning followed by intermediate spinning. When I think back, that was really ambitious for […]
September
Before these glorious days of September turn to more traditional fall weather, we wanted to share some Washington Island views and an old elementary school poem about this lovely month. September The goldenrod is yellow; The corn is turning brown, The trees in apple orchards With fruit are bending down. The gentian’s bluest fringes Are curling in the sun, In dusty pods the milkweed Its hidden silk has spun. The hedges flaunt their harvest In every meadow nook, And asters on the hillside Makes aster in the brook. From dewy lanes at morning The grape’s sweet odors rise, At noon the roads all flutter With yellow butterflies. By all these lovely tokens September days are […]
First and new
The first class, many first-time weavers, a new instructor and for the first time, using the 8-shaft Baby Wolf Schacht looms in a Beginning Weaving class at Sievers were a lot of “first’s and new’s” to start our season. Besides the first project of a scarf or table runner, students finished a three-piece color gamp. Quite a lot of weaving these happy students were able to go home with! Susan Frame, the instructor, is familiar with using the 8-harness looms for beginners when teaching at The Fiber Garden so we followed suit and, as we anticipated, it all worked beautifully. One of the students attending the class had bought a Sievers loom in 1981 from Walter Schutz (we still have a record of […]
Before we begin
Before we begin our season of classes on Saturday, May 26 and welcome the first of our students and instructor Susan Frame to teach Beginning Weaving, it seemed like time to share more photos of spring on Washington Island. With the Beginning Weaving class and all the others that will follow this year, we’ll have many photos to share telling the Sievers story. Today, it’s a story in photos of our home and the simple, quiet beauty that can be found on Washington Island. Looking back to the opening sentences from the first year Sievers brochure (1979) we read, “For those of you who have visited Door County in Wisconsin we need not tell you about the exhilarating beauty of the area. Washington Island, we think, is the best…it […]
If Once You Have Slept on an Island
“If once you have slept on an island, you’ll never be quite the same;…you’ll see blue water and wheeling gulls wherever your feet may go.” “Oh! you won’t know why and you can’t say how Such a change upon you came, But once you have slept on an island, You’ll never be quite the same.” Rachel Field We can attest to that!
Between seasons
After holding on for so long, the last of the fall leaves are on the ground and signs of the transition into winter are beginning to appear. We now see a few snow flurries in the air and ice forming on the ponds and shoreline. There’s not much color in the landscape, but it is November, a month when you have to appreciate the subtleties of nature. Island life becomes quieter now. A few more of the seasonal businesses are closing their doors for the winter and will take some time to enjoy hearth and home. Sievers is quiet and busy at the same time as we’re preparing for our 2018 season. Between this season and then, we wish you some quiet time with all […]
Fall views from the roadsides
It is still uncharacteristically green here on Washington Island and it sounds like this is true in many places across Wisconsin. We keep looking for trees in full fall foliage, but so far, there are only branches here and there that have begun to show color. So, we’re finding fall views from the ground up, starting with wildflowers and wildlife from the roadsides. We’ll share again as more golds, oranges and reds appear. We can’t wait!
Straw into gold
Well, maybe not technically spinning straw into gold, but the students in Deb Jones’ Beginning Spinning and Rainbow Dyeing class took simple wool fibers and turned them into something equally precious to a beginning spinner, their own handspun and hand-dyed yarns. By the end of the first afternoon, these beginners were spinners! You can see more photos from the class as Deb has posted them on The Fiber Garden Facebook page. Her next stop, along with other Sievers teachers (Nancy Frantz and Mary Germain), students and friends is the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival from September 7-10. Spinning is one of the classes that’s been offered at Sievers each year since the start. One of those first classes in 1979 is shown in the black and white photo. Dyeing was added later, using […]
