This may well be Thistle Cottage Studio’s most creatively inspired group of Summer Camp students yet!!  A wide variety of courses are offered each summer to adults, teens, and children, including our two PPAC Summer Arts Scholarship winners!  We have Julia D., who just completed her first 8 week course in Innovative Apparel Design.  As in, create a garment from anything BUT traditional clothing fabric.  Her “fabric store” this class was Home Depot!  Julia cleverly manipulated pink foam insulation material into a cocktail dress, while decorating the surface of it with her own hand cut flowers from the abundant array colors of free paint chips at HD. She finished the dress with a braided rope belt of colorful cording.  The entire dress is handsewn. Bravo, Julia!! And just to guild the lily a bit, Julia  is a National Honors Society inductee, and is headed to RISD when she graduates high school in a few years. RISD students create such an innovative project in their sophomore year.  Jules will be ready!! She will soon be returning from vacation to take her fifth course in Advanced Pattern Drafting!! New Drafting I classes will be forming this fall.
  Sarah U, our second  PPAC scholarship winner, is in the process of learning to paint on silk.  She is in the beginning phase of her massive 16 week project!  We will be updating her progress in a week or so with photos of her amazing work! You won’t want to miss this!! She is currently working on the first phase of her painting.  A solution of clear resist is painted on the silk, to outline the areas to be colored, to keep them from merging and bleeding into each other.  This acts as a sort of a fence between the colors, not unlike stained glass.  Sarah loves working in the Japanese animae style, and will be creating a very detailed painting on her kimono, which she will assemble later in the fall, when the lengthy painting process is completed.  She has inspired me (her teacher) to create a line of hand-painted silk scarves, which we will debut on ETSY.com, and at the Scituate Art Festival in October.  
  Karalyn Factor, a theater student at Philadelphia College of Art, has returned this summer for a millinery class, in which she created the most adorable plaid cloche, and now is taking a sketching class, starting with anatomy. Her sketch of the human skull is the  first in a series of anatomy excercises.  She will evolve toward costume sketching by the end of this course.
  Our newer students include the very talented Season Kropat, already an accomplished purse/bag designer, and fellow ETSY shop owner of The Path to Odd.  Season is focusing this summer on learning to make clothing.  Then, there is 13 year old Lucy, a student at Wheeler in Providence, who is already showing extraordinary adeptness at cutting and sewing her first princess seamed dress, in a print of large stars.  Maybe shades of her destiny to come!!  Twelve year old Michael Taylor-Hill (how’s that for a designer label!!), is just finishing up his first pair of lounge pants, after successfully completing  his designer tote bag.  Michael is a die hard Project Runway fan, and I’m hedging my bets that he will be our first PR contestant, if it is still on the air when he’s old enough to enter!! He is well on his way to earning his first Bernina sewing machine for Christmas this year!  Congrats Michael!!
   Zhania, who will be 10 years old in October, is designing and making her first tote bag, to carry her Bratz sewing machine in! It really works too!!  SO adorable!! And Erika, our 9 year old race car driver, is now finishing up her pink camouflage cargo pants.
  TCS also recently bid bon voyage to Milena Gianfrancesco, who just finished the sweetest 1920′ style dropped waist dress, in a delicate yellow stripe, for her trip to southern Italy, and Sardinia!  She did a fabulous job! Can’t wait to see those pictures of her wearing it when she returns. We will definitely be posting those gems!!  Another vacation traveler departing with a TCS summer course outfit is Dawn Souza, who will be taking her beach cover up and skirt set to Hawaii next week. Don’t forget the sunscreen, Dawn! 
  While all of this beehive of activity and creativity is going on, when I’m not teaching two sessions per day, four days a week, I am filling and shipping orders worldwide in my ETSY shop.  A big shout out and thank you goes to Edna Trillo of Glendale , Arizona for buying an amazing 30 pieces from our ETSY shop in June and July!!  Thistle Cottage Studio has also just joined the MOE Etsy group of milliners.  We are hoping to revive the wearing of hats, as they were a necessary wardrobe component in the entire history of fashion! 
  Our intern and model, Allison is busy making our collection of exotic tapestry bags!  Each day a new Peruvian hat is also added to the line  (on www.orsinimedici1951.etsy.com), as well as many new lace collage jackets now on the cutting tables. (see the second photo of this idea).  Whew!!  Time for MY vacation?!!
  I hope our readers will keep an eye on the progression of these exciting projects, and if you are in the area on Fri./Sat./Sun., of Columbus Day weekend, stop by to see Thistle Cottage Studio at the Scituate Art Festival, and  meet Sarah, Allison, Julia, and myself, at 618 W. Greenville Rd. (RTE. 116), across from the Country Gardener, in Scituate, RI. The festival goes from 10am to 6pm, rain or shine. We’re saying our prayers for three cool, dry, pristine New England fall days!!!
Please give us a call at 401-231-4343 if you are interested in classes.  We offer affordable weekday and weekend classes at the moment!! See our course menu at craiglist.org.