Experience Level: Beginner 

Learn how to jam with other musicians at Beginner Jam Sessions on Saturdays, Sept. 13, Oct. 11, Nov. 8 and Dec. 13 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in The Studio. Learn to play as a group and learn new songs at a gentle pace in a friendly environment. 

Jams sessions are open to beginning mountain dulcimer players and other instrumentalists. 

$5/person. Registration closes one day before each course begins or when capacity is reached. All sales are final. 

— Sept. 13 
— Oct. 11 
— Nov. 8 
— Dec. 13 

Learn more about the space where your course will take place here. If you will need disability-related accommodations to participate, please email Olivia Bunting at owarren@illinois.edu. 

By attending, you consent to your image being used in Allerton marketing, social media and publications. Please alert the photographer or videographer if you do not want your image taken. 

About the instructor 

Lou Ann Koebel currently leads a weekly dulcimer jam for the East Central Dulcimer Illinois Dulcimer Club at Lincoln Square. She also plays in a local band that visits and performs at local assisted living facilities. 

Koebel has taught beginning dulcimer classes for The Farms, where she has had a wonderful time teaching the group and realized her love of teaching and passing on the tradition of playing a mountain dulcimer. Lou Ann also plays at area music festivals. 

Experience Level: Beginner

Use rings, thread and yarn to take your sewing to another level at a Button Making Workshop on Sunday, Dec. 14 from 1 to 4 p.m. in The Studio.

In this hands-on course, instructor Billie Theide will help students create beautiful and functional Dorset buttons as they learn skills such as casting, slicking, laying spokes, rounding and weaving, and embellishing.

Once a cottage industry in Dorset, England, Dorset buttons can be used creatively to embellish clothing and accessories and to make jewelry.

$105. Registration will close Dec. 7 or when capacity is reached. All sales are final.

If you will need disability-related accommodations to participate, please email owarren@illinois.edu.

By attending, you consent to your image being used in Allerton marketing, social media and publications. Please alert the photographer or videographer if you do not want your image taken.

About the instructor

Billie Theide is a former chair of the Crafts Program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she is Professor Emerita. Theide is a metalsmith, jeweler and ceramicist. Her work is in public art collections around the world including the Smithsonian, Museum of Arts & Design in New York City, Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City and the Racine Art Museum, among others.

She is the recipient of a Visual Arts Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and five Artists Fellowship Grants from the Illinois Arts Council. Theide has been recognized for her excellence in teaching and is a Distinguished Member and Past-President of the Society of North American Goldsmiths.

Experience Level: Beginner

Learn how to decorate cookies for summer at Holiday Cookie Decorating on Saturday, December 20 from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Greenhouse Auditorium.

Learn to decorate holiday-themed cookies with royal icing, crusting butter cream and rolled buttercream! Instructor Jennifer Holhubner will demonstrate and explain wet-on-wet technique, outlining and flooding and make flowers. Each participant will receive directions to decorate five cookies.

$75/person*. Register here by Dec. 13. All sales are final.

*Students should bring a take-home container.

If you will need disability-related accommodations to participate, please email Olivia Bunting at owarren@illinois.edu.

By attending, you consent to your image being used in Allerton marketing, social media and publications. Please alert the photographer or videographer if you do not want your image taken.

About the instructor

Champaign-Urbana native Jennifer Holhubner taught herself how to decorate cakes when she was 16 years old and took up cookie decorating in 2019.

“Although they intimidated me, I forged on and got better with each order. I still have room to grow as we all do in whatever task we take on,” she said. “But I love to share the aspects of baking and decorating. I can actually now say, I am cookier!”

Jennifer also teaches decorating classes at Parkland College.