Continuing on with our June classes, we’ll see more from Ellen Graf’s “Your Latest, Greatest Quilt” class and the Batik Alumni Studio with Mary Jo Scandin, along with some terrific weaving done in the “Introduction to Overshot” class with Nancy Adams. Here’s where we left off, starting with the busy hum of sewing machines, creating big, beautiful designs from small pieces. Like most quilters, these ladies were an organized group! Stacks of pre-cut pieces or pre-made blocks from home were labeled carefully and kept in order, ready for precise placement. Ellen helps each student bring their ideas and vision together, making their “latest, greatest quilt” extra special. Batik alumni gather with Mary Jo (who is ever-creative and always evolving), to […]
Making the most of June-Part 1
How much can we fit into the month of June? Plenty, as it turns out! We’ll have welcomed five classes since June 10, which we’ll visit in this post and the next. For beginners and beyond, team teachers Kathy Broer and Judith Yamamoto have shared one or more new techniques during their Japanese Temari classes and this year, the focus was on Kikus and Triwings. In addition, for their main project, the students were challenged to use several shades of orange colors in each of the design motifs on their Temari. It’s truly captivating to see all of the samples Kathy and Judie bring as inspiration for their students and there’s an added delight to see the looks of amazement […]
It’s about the friendships
Fiber arts may be the focus of Sievers classes, but many times, it’s equally about the friendships. That’s certainly true of the Batik Alumni Studio, facilitated by Mary Jo Scandin as well as the two overlapping classes last week, Your Latest, Greatest Quilt with Ellen Graf and Independent Study in Basketry with Jeanette Biederman. In each group, long-standing friendships have been formed, with some of those Sievers-class friendships going back more than 30 years! We know from each group that several get together during the Sievers “off season”, maintaining their connection not only to their chosen fiber art, but to each other. In the batik studio, there’s an ever-changing landscape of pieces in various stages of drawing, dyeing, waxing and […]
2023 Sievers Preview
February 1st will be here in only three weeks! That day, all of our 2023 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 2023 brochure are some of the many colorful splint-woven baskets made by Jeanette Biederman. Thank you, Jeanette, for all the beautiful baskets and equally beautiful friendships you’ve made with us and your students over the past 32 years! Many of our instructors are returning in 2023 and we welcome two new teachers this year, Joyce Gitter and John Rezachek. Both Joyce and John […]
Basics and beyond
It’s always good to start from the beginning. With the two classes last week, students in one did just that, while the other was geared for beyond beginners. Interestingly, the three instructors for these classes started at the beginning and have gone well beyond here at Sievers. In the Quilting 101: Boot Camp, co-teachers Ellen Graf and Jackie Barry started students off with the basics of how to choose fabrics, accurately measure and safely cut fabric and sew patchwork blocks while establishing good techniques. Learning four different blocks and combining them, students created a wall hanging or table topper. Speaking of starting with the basics, Ellen came to Sievers for a Basic Spinning class in 1983, returning later for beginner-level […]
Wonderful and better
It was a wonderful week of Rigid Heddle Weaving with Deb Jones and the only thing that could have made the week better was to have an Open Quilt Studio at the same time…so we did! Some of the weavers were beginners and some had previous rigid heddle experience, so there were intermediate-level techniques and project ideas, including weft-faced weaves. Beginners started with scarves, then made a sampler, then had time for at least one more project. The instructor, Deb Jones, first came to Sievers as a student in Franie Philps’ Intermediate Spinning class in 1991. She continued to take spinning-related classes with Deb Menz as well as weaving, marbling, papermaking, feltmaking and coiled basketry. In 1999, less than a […]
Washington Island fiber happenings
These snowy, windy and cold days make for some of the best times to gather and knit, quilt or sew. We know of many people who are tucked into their own Washington Island homes, weaving, spinning or stitching, too. Mondays and Tuesdays find several Island residents meeting at Trinity Lutheran Church, sharing their gift of handwork with others, like a warm shawl or a quilt to comfort those who are experiencing a loss or illness. Handmade hats, mittens and scarves might be draped on December’s “Giving Tree”, where items are collected and sent to youth in need. The Trinity quilters, besides making comfort and charity quilts distributed both on the Island and globally, create and present a quilt to each […]
Give them a hand…
…for all the knitting and quilting and learning that took place in both Sandy De Master and Mary Germain’s Baltic Knitting Extravaganza and Ellen Graf’s Balance in Quilt Design classes! From the smallest Latvian mini-mittens to a full-size quilt, there were new and renewed projects in both studios. Following traditional designs or adapting and creating new ones were options in both classes. Both were equally wonderful! Studio visit times allow everyone to share and show the work of their hands, demonstrating a quote often associated with Walter Schutz, “Happiness is in your hands…and it keeps you young!” From the Reader’s Digest article Walter found that quote in, the last sentence reads, “We need the sense of self-confidence, self-respect, that comes […]
