CLASS DESCRIPTIONS
Nibbles and Needles: Beginning Knitting
We’ll cozy up on the couches in front of the woodstove and enjoy snacks while you get started on a knitting project. You should be able to leave with something that you’ve finished: a washrag, earwarmer, hat, or some such small goal. This is the best way to truly launch a knitting career – by being immersed in stitches for a few hours! (Kid-Friendly Class)
Absolute Beginning Spinning: Spindles and Wheels
For true beginners, this class will give students hands-on time with several types of drop spindles and several types of spinning wheels. We’ll discuss the properties of different fibers, make our own wool rovings with various tools and practice, practice, practice. Students are strongly encouraged to come back the following week for Beginning-ish Spinning.
Beginning-ish Spinning: Making a Skein
When you leave this class, you should have a finished skein of yarn you can knit up into something at home! But first, you’ll need to know the basics of using a wheel or spindle. (Absolute Beginning Spinning, Feb 18, is a good primer, but other experiences will do.) This class is for those who have their own wheel or are close to making that purchase. Bring yours if you’ve got it. We’ll spend lots of time tweaking technique so you can begin to consistently spin the yarn you want.
Getting Fancy on the Wheel: Intermediate Techniques for Spinning Art Yarns
Fiber is fun! And once you’ve got a basic understanding of spinning on a wheel, you can get crazy with your fluff. Bring your own wheel with a jumbo flyer, or use one of ours, to create fabulous one-of-a-kind yarns with mixed fibers. From single-ply chunky yarns to mohair boucles, we’ll experiment with different techniques to come up with some lovely artistic results you can fashion into hats, scarves or other small projects.
Art Scarves: Nuno Felting with Wool and Silk
In this class you’ll use habotai silk, wool locks, sari threads, kid angora, mylar angelina and maybe even some lint collected off your own clothes to make a one of a kind wearable work of art. A great intro to multiple fiber art techniques, this class employs dyeing, shibori resist, pleating, needle-felting and wet felting. Plan to work hard, physically, and stand for a few hours. You’ll be amazed at the results.
Dye Party!
Spend an afternoon in Maidmarion’s Summer Kitchen Dye Studio, fully stocked with over 100 dye concentrates and various goodies to dip. Learn the basics of dyeing protein fibers (silk, wool, feathers, and eggs) and practice several different techniques you can reproduce easily at home. We’ll provide several sizes of silk scarves and ribbons, a skein of wool yarn and some wool locks. Bring items of your own to experiment with. (Kid-Friendly Class)
Wool Friends: Needle-Felted Animals and Fairies
Create either sculptural toys or dreamy one-dimensional fairy-scapes in this open-ended needle-felting experience. Students will experiment with wire armatures and other sculptural devices as they use a barbed needle to felt their way toward revealing expressive, irresistible wooly creatures. This class will feature some time in the barn visiting newly-born lambs! (Kid-Friendly Class)
Making Stuff Out of Sweaters and Fluff
Dig into our stockpile of shrunken sweaters and start snipping. Or bring some mostly-wool pre-felted items of your own and we’ll give you some good ideas for how to make something new out of them. The ultimate in up-cycled chic, felted scraps make wonderful purses, oven mitts, pillow cases, hats, toys or jewelry. Embellish with hand-sewing, embroidery, needle-felt techniques and vintage beads and buttons to create one-of-a-kind objects to display, use, wear and share. (Kid-Friendly Class)
Stylish Slouch Hats from Recycled Knits
In this class, we’ll take moth-eaten cashmere sweaters, stained-up sweatshirts and mish-shapen Ts and turn them into rock-n-roll slouch hats. Using basic hand-sewing techniques, participants should be able to stitch up two or three hats each, then embellish with graphic needle-felted designs. (Kid-Friendly Class)
We’ll cozy up on the couches in front of the woodstove and enjoy snacks while you get started on a knitting project. You should be able to leave with something that you’ve finished: a washrag, earwarmer, hat, or some such small goal. This is the best way to truly launch a knitting career – by being immersed in stitches for a few hours! (Kid-Friendly Class)
Absolute Beginning Spinning: Spindles and Wheels
For true beginners, this class will give students hands-on time with several types of drop spindles and several types of spinning wheels. We’ll discuss the properties of different fibers, make our own wool rovings with various tools and practice, practice, practice. Students are strongly encouraged to come back the following week for Beginning-ish Spinning.
Beginning-ish Spinning: Making a Skein
When you leave this class, you should have a finished skein of yarn you can knit up into something at home! But first, you’ll need to know the basics of using a wheel or spindle. (Absolute Beginning Spinning, Feb 18, is a good primer, but other experiences will do.) This class is for those who have their own wheel or are close to making that purchase. Bring yours if you’ve got it. We’ll spend lots of time tweaking technique so you can begin to consistently spin the yarn you want.
Getting Fancy on the Wheel: Intermediate Techniques for Spinning Art Yarns
Fiber is fun! And once you’ve got a basic understanding of spinning on a wheel, you can get crazy with your fluff. Bring your own wheel with a jumbo flyer, or use one of ours, to create fabulous one-of-a-kind yarns with mixed fibers. From single-ply chunky yarns to mohair boucles, we’ll experiment with different techniques to come up with some lovely artistic results you can fashion into hats, scarves or other small projects.
Art Scarves: Nuno Felting with Wool and Silk
In this class you’ll use habotai silk, wool locks, sari threads, kid angora, mylar angelina and maybe even some lint collected off your own clothes to make a one of a kind wearable work of art. A great intro to multiple fiber art techniques, this class employs dyeing, shibori resist, pleating, needle-felting and wet felting. Plan to work hard, physically, and stand for a few hours. You’ll be amazed at the results.
Dye Party!
Spend an afternoon in Maidmarion’s Summer Kitchen Dye Studio, fully stocked with over 100 dye concentrates and various goodies to dip. Learn the basics of dyeing protein fibers (silk, wool, feathers, and eggs) and practice several different techniques you can reproduce easily at home. We’ll provide several sizes of silk scarves and ribbons, a skein of wool yarn and some wool locks. Bring items of your own to experiment with. (Kid-Friendly Class)
Wool Friends: Needle-Felted Animals and Fairies
Create either sculptural toys or dreamy one-dimensional fairy-scapes in this open-ended needle-felting experience. Students will experiment with wire armatures and other sculptural devices as they use a barbed needle to felt their way toward revealing expressive, irresistible wooly creatures. This class will feature some time in the barn visiting newly-born lambs! (Kid-Friendly Class)
Making Stuff Out of Sweaters and Fluff
Dig into our stockpile of shrunken sweaters and start snipping. Or bring some mostly-wool pre-felted items of your own and we’ll give you some good ideas for how to make something new out of them. The ultimate in up-cycled chic, felted scraps make wonderful purses, oven mitts, pillow cases, hats, toys or jewelry. Embellish with hand-sewing, embroidery, needle-felt techniques and vintage beads and buttons to create one-of-a-kind objects to display, use, wear and share. (Kid-Friendly Class)
Stylish Slouch Hats from Recycled Knits
In this class, we’ll take moth-eaten cashmere sweaters, stained-up sweatshirts and mish-shapen Ts and turn them into rock-n-roll slouch hats. Using basic hand-sewing techniques, participants should be able to stitch up two or three hats each, then embellish with graphic needle-felted designs. (Kid-Friendly Class)
Herbal Soaps and Scrubs
Get down and dirty petting all the animals, then get cleaned up with your own soap and scrub creations. We’ll start with bases of goat milk, coconut, glycerin, honey and olive oil and add your choice of essential oils, colors, crushed herbs, ground chocolate, almond flour or various other mix-ins. You will make several different soaps. Then we’ll let the soaps cure and harden while we create an olive oil sugar scrub just perfect for getting those muddy feet clean. Come prepared to experiment and have some good clean fun!
Get down and dirty petting all the animals, then get cleaned up with your own soap and scrub creations. We’ll start with bases of goat milk, coconut, glycerin, honey and olive oil and add your choice of essential oils, colors, crushed herbs, ground chocolate, almond flour or various other mix-ins. You will make several different soaps. Then we’ll let the soaps cure and harden while we create an olive oil sugar scrub just perfect for getting those muddy feet clean. Come prepared to experiment and have some good clean fun!
Gardening From Sprout to Spud: Beginning Veggie Growing
Have you been dreaming of a big, beautiful organic home garden but don’t know where to start? We’ll get you started at the beginning, with seeds. Spend time in our greenhouse learning how to grow plants in flats – and leave with one full flat planted and ready to germinate back home on top of your fridge. Then enjoy a note-taking tour of our CSA gardens, learning what you can start early and what you can keep growing far along into the the late season. Get some good suggestions for succeeding with your particular favorite vegetables. Experiment with a wide variety of hand tools for efficient weeding. And finally, finish with a cup of tea and a visit to the baby lambs!
Growing Big on Your Small Spot: Using Commercial Techniques and Tools to Produce More Organic Food at Home
We’ve done it all, just about. From growing fruit and veggies in our tiny Chicago front yard to serving 120 CSA members from our 4 acres of gardens at Circle M Market Farm in southwest Wisconsin, we’ve experimented on different scales and with various schools of thought. Lots of what works on commercial farms can help on small plots, too. We’ll teach you how to apply tools, techniques and tricks from from the big guys to grow more efficiently on your small spot.
Have you been dreaming of a big, beautiful organic home garden but don’t know where to start? We’ll get you started at the beginning, with seeds. Spend time in our greenhouse learning how to grow plants in flats – and leave with one full flat planted and ready to germinate back home on top of your fridge. Then enjoy a note-taking tour of our CSA gardens, learning what you can start early and what you can keep growing far along into the the late season. Get some good suggestions for succeeding with your particular favorite vegetables. Experiment with a wide variety of hand tools for efficient weeding. And finally, finish with a cup of tea and a visit to the baby lambs!
Growing Big on Your Small Spot: Using Commercial Techniques and Tools to Produce More Organic Food at Home
We’ve done it all, just about. From growing fruit and veggies in our tiny Chicago front yard to serving 120 CSA members from our 4 acres of gardens at Circle M Market Farm in southwest Wisconsin, we’ve experimented on different scales and with various schools of thought. Lots of what works on commercial farms can help on small plots, too. We’ll teach you how to apply tools, techniques and tricks from from the big guys to grow more efficiently on your small spot.
Don’t see any class that fits you just right? Give Kriss a call at 608-558-0501 and we can design an experience just for you or your group.
