Courses

Let the colors of the Northern Aurora Borealis sky inspire this delightful winter hat knit with traditional Icelandic wool. It is an intriguing design using Scandinavian stranded knitting techniques, corrugated rib and optional fanciful hat toppers that make every hat as unique and magical as the winter night sky and…

Why “knot” use cattail leaves to make a handy tote bag? These abundant and easy-to-harvest materials are very flexible, making them a great material for knotted basketry. In this four-day class, students will construct a tote bag of natural materials including cattail leaves, willow bark, iris leaves and sweetgrass. The course…

Rings on fingers have been around since the beginning of civilization. Egyptian and Greek legend place the wedding ring on the third finger of the left hand, because of a belief that the vein of that finger traveled directly from the heart. The Romans extended this description and called this…

Late summer brings on a plethora of mushrooms, and the North Shore and Superior National Forest are great places to see myriad species. From the fairytale Amanita to the mysterious Lobster mushroom to the unusual Ramaria species, there’s no shortage of beauties to find and identify. Michael Karns, a certified…

Explore nature-based green medicines in this intensive botanical class. You’ll discover a bounty of foods and plants to use during the seasons and cycles of plant life to create your very own natural medicine kit, including over 30 botanical and herbal mixes and applications. The course tailors to individual needs…

Dyeing cloth using natural materials is a magical process: Add a bit of steam and assorted leaves, flowers, and old rusty nails, and wait an hour…the results are extraordinary. Who knew all the colors of nature were hidden in plain sight? In this course, you’ll learn a bit about the…

Needle felting is fun and therapeutic...and who doesn’t have a little frustration to work through in a creative and positive way these days? In this virtual class with fiber arts instructor Laura Berlage, we will mail you a kit with all the supplies you need (just bring a scissors), including…

Combine bead embroidery and needle felting to create a unique landscape “painting,” while learning the basics of both in this two-day workshop. Participants will bring a landscape image (photo, magazine image, postcard etc.) to inspire their beaded piece. First, you will create a simple needle-felted wool background fabric. Then, you…

Healing traditions, like all crafts, reflect the landscape and stories of the people who create them. Explore Norse and Sami-inspired herbal medicine in this workshop based around the handcrafting of seven herbal medicines, each tethered to a particular story and made from northern plants. Rooted in her own Nordic ancestry,…

Tradition holds that any self-respective Nordic homemaker would always have seven different types of cookies on hand to offer guests. We’d settle for a couple! But in the spirit of the north, we’ll bake four types treats, guided in part by Swedish chef Magnus Nilsson’s “the Nordic Baking Book.” We’ll…

Learn to turn on both power and pole lathes and explore the historical continuum of bowl turning in this unique course offering. Students will move back and forth between the foot-powered pole lathe and modern electric lathe to delve deeply into a study of old world Norwegian ale bowls. This…

Traditional sheepskin blankets with a tanned leather back require that the sheep make the ultimate sacrifice. Yet it doesn’t have to be so! Instructor Becky Utecht has developed a modern approach to an age-old craft. Using felting techniques, students in this course will start with an unwashed sheep fleece and…

An abundance of easily accessed and harvested native materials very suitable for basketry grow in our northern region. In this class we will make a frame with strikingly red osier dogwood and then weave a basket with a handle using a mixture of cattail and iris leaves, basswood fiber, willow…

The bold and colorful Hallingdal rosemaling is an excellent style for the beginning rosemaler. Students will learn the basic brush strokes and hand techniques and color mixing for painting Hallingdal scrolls and flowers. Additional instruction will be provided for those wishing to create their own designs. Emphasis will be on…

Rosemaling means "rose painting" in Norwegian, and is done in many styles reflective of specific regions in Norway. In this course, participants will be able to choose whether they wish to begin a project in the Telemark or Valdres style (beginners welcome in either style) or bring an unfinished object…