Watch Andrea’s short film “Stitching Seams” which won “Best Narrative” at the 2023 Ashfield Film Festival! Click on the image below to watch the film.

The music in this video is Royalty Free Music by Kevin Macleod, 2015.

About The Curious Thimble

My name is Andrea and this website is sort of like a digital diary where I document my creative work and love of making things.

I have worked in various aspects of museum education, historical interpretation, living history and public programming for over 20 years with experience in farming, folk craft and grant writing. Needing to be resourceful during COVID, I worked on different farms and learned how to drive draft horses, make maple syrup and raised dairy goats at home while running a small art business.

Regardless of the professional work I do, I always come back to what grounds me: slow living, history and the art of storytelling. In fact, I feel as though these three elements are the foundational blocks to everything I do and they are the inspiration for my creativity and love of making.

I currently live with my law student husband and our elderly cat in a small hillside town of Western Massachusetts. While we no longer have dairy goats and a horse, I hope to take up farming again with fiber sheep and pygora goats in the future! I work as the collections steward part-time for a nearby museum & archives and as guide at a New England history museum.

I don’t have any public social media, but if you’d like to receive an email when I post a new blog essay you can sign up here.

Fun (I think?) facts about me:

  1. My favorite book in English is The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.

  2. My favorite poem is In School-Days by John Greenleaf Whittier

  3. I grew up in the Bronx and have been living in rural New England for over 20 years.

  4. I know how to drive a team of horses and have driven a team of oxen.

  5. I love animals and wanted to be a veterinarian as a kid but turned out I really didn’t like biology when I got to high school. History buff all the way!

  6. I won the Oratory Award at my 8th grade graduation, and somehow I’m still nervous every time I have to do a public speaking exercise.

  7. I sing alto and discovered the joy of singing only two years ago!

  8. I have an M.A. in Italian literary & cultural studies and speak Italian fluently.

  9. Winter is my favorite season. The colder and snowier, the better!

  10. I have a 19 year old cat named Milo who has been with me for 15 years and is often featured in many of my art pieces.

  11. I have been knitting for almost 30 years and learned when I was 13 at Old Sturbridge Village at the Bixby House during one summer of my junior internship!

  12. I have been sewing for 6 years and make almost all of my own clothes (I own a couple pairs of jeans because making pants is my least favorite thing to sew!).

  13. Women’s history is a passion of mine. I am particularly interested in the stories of women who demonstrated real gumption living lives that often strayed from the typical path of what was expected (or what we expect of the past!). I have an affinity for the Women’s Land Army, Italian chocolatier Luisa Spagnoli, 18th century mid-wife Martha Ballard, and 18th century Innkeeper Anna Bingham. The list continues to grow.