Blue Goose Studio: the family workshop behind the blue door in Winterthur
We spent a Friday evening at Blue Goose Studio, the family-run workshop in Winterthur. Glass, doormats, candles, and a room full of people who came to make something with their hands.
Behind a blue door, three floors up
Blue Goose Studio sits on the third floor of a building on Stadthausstrasse, about five minutes from Winterthur's main station. You find it by the door. It is painted blue, and a small goose marks the way in.
The name comes from the family. Blue is the colour most of them reach for, and a white goose sits on their family crest. Put the two together at the top of a blue staircase and you get Blue Goose.
A family that makes things
The studio is run by the Ganz family, and everyone brings a craft. Irina founded it and works as a graphic designer; she runs the neon painting and upcycling evenings. Tamara handles crochet and the painting workshops, glass and doormats and candles. Alessandro covers natural cosmetics, terrariums, and kokedama. Susanne leads pottery and seasonal wreaths. Vivien keeps the events running.
Tamara showed us around. She talked about why the family opened the doors to other people instead of keeping the craft to themselves. The reason is simple. They want to give people a few hours away from the screen, a way to step off the hamster wheel and make something real with their hands.
Friday evening, the room fills up
We came on a Friday evening, the two of us, to see a course from the inside and to take photos for the studio. Six people arrived and settled in around the long table by the windows.
Tamara had set the room before anyone arrived. Materials laid out at every seat, brushes sorted, colours ready. People sat down and started. An apéro came with it, snacks and drinks included in the price, so the evening felt less like a class and more like being hosted.
Within minutes the room was talking. People compared colours, asked each other questions, laughed at their first attempts. Nobody was chasing a perfect result. They had come to make something for themselves, and it showed.
Painting on glass
Half the table worked on glass. Brushes, small pots of colour, a plain glass in front of each person, and an hour to turn it into something. Tamara moved between the seats, mixing a shade here, steadying a hand there.
This is the workshop Tamara runs most often. On Atelo it is listed as Türmatte / Glas bemalen, and it starts at CHF 29. For that you get the materials, an hour with Tamara, the apéro, and the finished piece to take home. We kept running the numbers and it kept feeling like a lot for the money.
Doormats, candles, and the rest
The other half painted doormats, plain coir mats that left the studio carrying initials, patterns, a stripe of blue. One person decorated candles. Same table, same hour, three different things to take home.
That mix is the studio in one sentence. The shelves hold crocheted animals, beaded jewellery, terrariums in glass jars, suncatchers, soap. Whatever you came to try, the person next to you is probably making something else.
Made to be taken home
When the hour was up, everyone left with a finished piece. No drying racks to come back to, no second visit. You make it, you keep it, you use it.
That is the part that stays with you. A glass you painted on a Friday evening turns up in your kitchen on a Tuesday, and the evening comes back for a moment.
More people at the table
After the course we sat down with Tamara. What she likes about Atelo is the simplest thing: her courses sit in one place next to others, and people can filter for the workshop that fits them instead of hopping from one studio website to the next.
Her goal and ours line up. She wants more people to spend an evening making something, and we want to send them her way. A few hours of glass, colour, and conversation, and the screen can wait.
