Woolcraft – A Fiber Exploration on San Juan Island

Join us as we travel to beautiful San Juan Island to explore and celebrate wool and fiber craft. In this four-day creative workshop, you’ll go deep to learn about the sheep-to-fabric lifecycle. You’ll spend your days learning how to prepare fiber, spin it into yarn using a spindle or wheel, dye it in vibrant colors, and weave or knit it into a finished object. Along the way, you’ll visit a local sheep farm, speak with business owners making and selling their own yarn, gain a deeper appreciation of the Pacific Northwest fibershed, and experience the joy of creating by hand the textiles we use every day. Knitters, spinners, weavers, and wool-curious students of any skill level are encouraged to join!

You’ll stay at Saltwater Farm, a 160-acre sustainable woodland retreat that includes hens, rescue goats, vegetable, wine, and flower gardens, and a wood-fired oven. Pantry chefs Brandi Henderson will prepare daily meals, served family-style at the Farm’s Gathering Space.

This retreat includes:

• A visit to a sheep farm and introduction to selecting and preparing fleeces

• Hands-on lesson on with spinning wool into thread on a spindle and wheel, plying

• Hands-on weaving lesson on a rigid heddle loom, warping, finishing a project

• Hands-on lesson on dyeing, using mordants, planning colors, natural vs. synthetic dyes

• Open knitting time where you bring your own projects and yarn; our expert teachers will meet you where you are and help you master a new skill

• Evening discussions about contemporary fiber artists to get your creative juices bubbling

• All class supplies

• Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner each day

You’ll learn from our experts: Sarah Pope of San Juan Woolworks, local fiber artist Lisa Liedgren Alexandersson, Emily Tzeng of Local Color Fiber Studio, Anna Hosick-Kalahan from local mill Skagit Woolen Works, and Wool Friends co-founder Sarah Emerson. The next session of this Field Trip will take place April 3-6, 2025.

Wood-Fired Cooking – A Culinary Retreat on San Juan Island

In this retreat we team up with Restaurant Homer and Saltwater Farm for a magical four-day workshop focused on wood-fired cooking! Located on 162 acres of woodland on San Juan Island, Saltwater Farm is a sustainable venue that includes hens, rescue goats, vegetable, wine grape, and flower gardens, and an outdoor wood-fired oven in the middle of it all. In this culinary workshop you’ll spend your days learning how to prepare, maintain, and cook a wide variety of meats, vegetables, fruits, breads, and pastry in a wood-fired oven, with some free time in the afternoons to explore the island. You’ll work together to create meals that will include wood-fired pizza; roasted spatchcock chicken with wood-oven chicken stock; lamb shoulder roast with wood-fired pita; crispy smashed potatoes with caramelized labneh; wood-fired mussels in red curry with burnt coconut and lime; charred wedge salad; wood-fired rhubarb cobbler; and more!

This retreat takes place in late spring to early summer, with the next session date in the works.

Farm Camp with Quillisascut School of the Domestic Arts

Every summer we team up with Quillisascut School of the Domestic Arts for farm camp! Located in Rice, Washington, Quillisascut is a rural farmstead that includes livestock, a small orchard and extensive gardens that supply the ingredients that nourish the farmers and guests. Every summer they invite guests to the farm for culinary workshops, where you'll spend your days milking goats, making goat cheese, feeding, slaughtering, and butchering chickens, gathering eggs, harvesting garden vegetables and herbs, and foraging. Out of your day's adventures, you'll create meals that will include wood-fired sourdough bread, fresh-made yogurt, summer fruit jam, wood-oven rotisserie chicken, herbal infusions, wood-fired pizza, and so much more. On top of that, you will learn how to improvise meals based on what you harvest each day from the farm and have additional options in the farm garden to learn about local flowers, crack walnuts from the renowned tree, or try your hand at fermentation projects in the back kitchen.

This 4-day camp led by Nadia Tommalieh and the Quillisascut family takes place in July and September, with the next session dates in the works.