Reverence for the Vat

It is always a lovely, heart warming experience to have Melissa Arnold in the classroom.  This past weekend, she shared her love of the Indigo Vat with us.  It was such a privilege for me (Emma) to get to spend two days preparing the vats with Melissa and I am already enjoying the daily maintenance that the vats require.

Lisa's Adventures with Irit Dulman and Vilte

Hello,

This time it is Lisa writing to you.

In January, I went to my first out of town workshop all by myself.   I loaded my jeep with all my felting and  dyeing supplies and set off to the Monterey Peninsula.  The workshop was with Irit Dulman and Vilte Kazlauskaite.  Both of these great ladies I had admired on the Internet for sometime and could not believe they were traveling the world together teaching.  

I had tried to sign up for the workshop and found out it was full!!  I was so bummed!  By some chance, one of our students who came for another class turned out to be the coordinator for the workshop.  Victoria was sweet enough to take my name in case of a cancellation or the chance of more classes being added.  In December, Victoria came in to let me know I had a spot!!  I could not believe it was really happening!  

The workshop was so inspiring!  I had a goal, for the upcoming year, to create more garments and I was very interested in learning how to create amazing seamless garments like Viltes' . We were taught many methods of creating texture and how to construct a seamless garment.   This workshop was the perfect place to learn.  I had a few moments of fear with the dreaded math of it all, but I took a few deep breaths (wishing my math sister, Emma, was there) and set to work.  The classroom was filled with other felt makers who were willing to share their thoughts, methods and suppliers for other fabulous fibers and fabrics.  It truly was a perfect learning environment.

I loved the split day of felting and spending the afternoon dying.  It was exciting to know once we were done felting the fun continued!  Irit was so generous with her knowledge and gentle tutelage.  With boiling pots and piles of foliage we were set free to experiment.  We were like anxious children on Christmas morning waiting to open our special gifts.  I could not open my bundles fast enough to see the results!  It was like magic to see the imprints of the plants we had chosen.  

Needless to say, I came home very inspired and thankful for all of Victoria's hardworking, coordinating abilities; Irit and Viltes' willing to share; and my fellow felt makers comradery and friendship.  

I am very excited to see what creations come to me after this amazing workshop. I don't think I will ever drive again without my hand pruners!!

Thanks for reading!!

Lisa

Old World, New Age Felting with Marilou Moschetti

Hello long lost blog friends!!

I wanted to share some photos from the fantastic workshop that we had with Marilou Moschetti back in March.  I apologize for the delay in sharing - time to blog continues to elude me but I'm hopeful that with Hannah graduating (from CSU, Chico CONGRATULATIONS SISTER!!) at the end of this month and coming back to work at the Thimble, that between the two of us you might start seeing more posts!

Marilou's workshop focused on creating 3-Dimensional, textural nuno felted fabrics and the results were fantastic!  Here are some "in class" photos - hopefully I'll get my hands on some "finished-product" photos soon!

200th Post and Vintage Linen Obsessions

Hannah pointed out to me that our next blog post (this post) was going to be our 200th post and wondered if maybe we should do a little giveaway to celebrate.  I thought this was a fine idea and so we set out to turn a few things from this cabinet:

into some crisp little pretties.  And these are what beckoned:

We spent the last day of Hannah’s vacation sewing and it was a good day.  All of these adorable little aprons were made from salvaged linens, vintage fabrics, vintage trims and a few vintage aprons that were in need of some sprucing.  Isn't that aqua and red printed tablecloth above BEAUTIFUL!!  It had so many holes and stains and I loved it so much!  It was wonderful to see it turned into something new and fancy!  

Here at the shop, we all have such a soft spot for vintage linens.  Especially the damaged ones.  We know about all of the hard work, stiff necks and pricked fingers kind of work that went into these linens and then to see a pile of them in a thrift store or even worse, in a dumpster!!  We love to make up happy little stories about the women who worked on the linens as we rescue them and breath new life into them.  It is always a heart warming process.

SSOOOOOO.......  the giveaway, I'm sure you're wondering about the giveaway.  :-)

Hannah and I are going to put together a wonderful little bundle of vintage linens, vintage fabrics and vintage trims to that you can be a part of the linen rescuing as well!  We hope that this little bundle will inspire you to create a little, crisp pretty for yourself!  I'm going to wait until we have a winner and you can tell me what colors you would like and we'll do our best to match!

TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT (PREFERABLY APRON/VINTAGE LINEN RELATED) ON THIS POST (NOT ON FACEBOOK) AND WE WILL CHOOSE OUR WINNER AFTER 3:00 PM FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8th.

Batik

Haripriya Raghavan was in the classroom two weeks ago and she taught a wonderful little Batik class.  This was the first time Batiking (I think I may be making that word up) for both the students and The Tin Thimble and I'm just in love with what was created!  We will definitely be bringing Haripriya back to the classroom - keep your eye on November.

New Items from Linda Waddle!

Linda came in and added some wonderful things to our store the other day!  Some fantastic wool applique, screen printed wool and hand painted velveteen - Pillows and Table Runners.  Aren't they just lovely?

Nuno Felting & Dyeing with Carin Engen

I was lucky enough to participate in Auntie Carin's felting & dyeing class last weekend!  It was a wonderful 3 days and we all left with some gorgeous things.  Here's what I did in class:

If you'd like to see these up close feel free to stop by the shop and we can share them with you.  We're also excited that Carin should be coming back soon to teach the same exact class.  I'll let you know what the dates are as soon as I confirm!  And.......  Carin just started up her very own blog - go check it out!