Courses

Fully experience the craft of making a traditional birch bark basket for the gathering and storage of berries or anything you please. This course includes time focused both on basket making and on material preparation. Day one includes an extended session in the woods to harvest the birch bark in…

The market basket will take you many places: from the market to the beach, from picnics to the grocery stores. This course is an introduction to the awesome qualities of the ash tree, which we will use for both weaving the basket and making the handles. We will prepare the…

The black ash pack basket: It's beautiful, highly functional, and can be made using simple materials. The first part of the class will be spent preparing black ash splint for your basket by pounding a locally harvested log. Next, you'll weave the basket and finish it with a rim, handle,…

Traditional northern craft meets Don Draper? Fedoras are definitely back in fashion, DIY is all the rage, and in this fun course you can combine them both. Put a northern twist on a southern hat weaving tradition and make a woven cattail hat to protect yourself from the sun during…

The hex weave basket is commonly called a "cheese basket" because it can be used for processing cheese. However, this holey design is perfect for holding produce or other display needs. This project will be made from pre-pounded Black Ash splints, which the students will help cut and prepare. The…

The northwoods is full of beautiful, colorful material suitable for basketry: you just have to go out there and get it! Willow shoots, birch bark, tamarack bark, and willow bark are just a few of the options. In this class we will head out to a nearby location to identify,…

Create a traditional coiled basket from locally harvested red pine needles. Starting with either a pliable birch bark base or an elegant agate base, you will work with a variation of the spiral stitch to form a basket with a distinct spiral pattern inside and out. Samples of pine needles…

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 striking red osier dogwood and then weave a basket with a handle using a mixture of cattail and iris leaves, basswood fiber, willow…

Work with locally harvested sweet grass, cattails, and sedges during this two-day class while learning the art of coiling a sweet grass basket. We'll incorporate an elegant agate as a base for the basket. Hands-on instruction provides students with an introduction to the traditions and skills of basket weaving, and…

Simple and elegant, a handmade willow platter is a great way to serve fruits, breads and other foods. Made with locally harvested willow, these trays are held together entirely by tension and include additional woven details as a decorative element.  In this one day course, students will learn several basic…

Start your holiday season off with a weekend on the North House Folk School campus weaving traditional and contemporary ornaments from birch bark. Explore the range of birch bark weaving holiday projects from the simple bead to the 3-dimensional birch bark star  Working with colorful embellishments, learn to weave and…