Month: August 2011

Projects: 22 August – 4 September

Tchad

We will be spending the two weeks leading up to the Fall 2011 class session prepping the workroom and getting things together for the up-coming ten-week session.

On the agenda for the week:

  • Getting the rest of the estate settled.
  • Getting the workroom set up for classes.
  • We have started a new blog called Rural Pursuits to cull information about rural living. Stay tuned.
  • We will be working on the class schedule for the next two quarters (Winter and Spring 2012).
  • Email and general blog & Web stuff.
  • Tchad will be developing more with his personal blog and should be able to introduce the Wrought blog by the end of September.
  • There is a short video instructional series that we have been invited to work on.  It is a series that gives short creative video tips to working business women.  We will be able to tell you more about that in the coming weeks.

We will be putting our clothing business on hold for the next few months, so will not be taking consults or orders until at the very earliest late Spring 2012.  This is going to delay the roll out of the design blog, but we want it to be right, not just published.

So it is a fairly straightforward couple of weeks for us up here at Tchad.  Stay tuned for more.

In the meantime, you can always email us at:

tchad@tchad.biz or classes@tchad.biz

or you can text us at: 773.680.5914.

This should be an exciting Fall and Winter!  Let’s see what we can make happen!

 

It Isn’t All Silks & Sewing, You Know…

Tchad

We have our hands in a bit of everything – especially when we aren’t actively designing or teaching.

This Summer we took the time to do a few things:

  • We are organizing a book drive for the Books for Women in Prison, a non-profit that helps women in prison with their rehabilitation.
  • We spent a few weeks at Getaway Farms in rural Wisconsin.  Cyndi is setting up a non-profit that helps troubled kids with responsibility through animal therapy – horses specifically.
  • We spent some time researching horse training in Southern Indiana.
  • We ended up baling about 1600 bales of hay.

So it was an eventful Summer!  Here are some out-takes of the most fun we have had working in a long time:

Nothing better than a nice shrimp dinner after baling hay and training.

Tchad as Oliver Mellors

You can bet Tchad is never this filthy at the workroom!

Spring Valley Farms in Southern Indiana

A view across the horse fields and pasture.

Part of the field restoration work at Tchad's farm in Southern Indiana.

Part of the field restoration work at Tchad's farm in Southern Indiana.

Bacchus Picking Grapes

Honestly, you can't name your son Bacchus and NOT have a picture of him picking grapes, now can you?

Extricating Railroad ties.

There were about 25 sunken railroad ties at Getaway that needed to be removed for both safety and æsthetic reasons.

Tchad Moving Railroad Ties.

Tchad Moving Railroad Ties. The most unforgiving, back-breaking work is prying up long, dense, wet railroad ties. We are surprised that Dante didn't include them in one of the rings!

Showing kids how water on a farm is stored and used.

Kids were amazed at the infrastructure of the farm - they had no idea how water was collected and used. This is looking into a large cistern.

Weeds overgrow everything after just two seasons.

Farm work is often a lesson in entropy - if you let up, then everything starts the process of falling apart and you have more work that you would have otherwise. It is a really good lesson for city kids to learn.