Join us on a bi-monthly basis as we observe how honey bees manage hive activity during the summer at Bee Hive Observation on Sept 8. Classes will include an overview of seasonal influences, followed by a peek inside the hives to observe honey bees at work. Traditional and Flow Hives will be discussed.

Participants should wear long sleeves and pants, loose-fitting garments and no open shoes. You should also bring a protective bee veil and unscented rubber gloves.

$20/class. Register two days before each individual class. All sales are final.

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

About the instructor

When Maggie Wachter began her social work degree at the University of Illinois in 2008, she had no idea that she would become a beekeeper. As for honey, she kept a single jar in the back of her kitchen cabinet for recipes. Today she is a master beekeeper who never eats sugar.

Maggie received her first hive as a gift in 2008. By 2010, she was enrolled in the Master Beekeeper course at the University of Florida. From there, things happened quickly to turn her life around. In 2012, she started teaching beekeeping for Parkland Community Education and today she is a beekeeping teacher, honey judge, mead maker and master beekeeper.

She has also participated in honeybee research at the University of Illinois and the USDA.

About The Farms

The Farms: An Allerton Folk School, offers classes, workshops, and gatherings focusing on art, wellness, outdoor education, storytelling, and science. All experiences value hands-on, experiential teaching and learning, and are facilitated by and for the members of the community.

See the complete summer session here.

Experience Level: Beginner

Learn the basic mechanics of using a spinning wheel to make your own yarn at Learn to Spin Yarn on Monday, Sept. 9 from 5 to 8 p.m. in The Studio. 

After a brief introduction from instructor Stephanie Block, students will have time for hands-on spinning practice and the opportunity to spin alpaca fiber into yarn using Ashford scotch tension Traditional or Traveler wheels. Discussion of fiber production and preparation methods will also be included.

$100/person. Register by Sept. 6. All sales are final.

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

About the instructor

Stephanie Block is the co-owner of Sundrop Alpacas near Bement. She has been producing popular yarn from her own alpacas for more than eight years. Stephanie’s spinning style is self-taught, and she is continuously learning so that she can share that knowledge with others.

Learn the basics of cooking poultry from Blue Dragonfly Catering owner Leah Bodine at Chicken Freezer Meals 101 on Tuesday, Sept. 10 from 5 to 7:30 p.m. in the Mansion Carriage House. 

In this workshop, students will learn knife skills by cutting vegetables, mincing herbs and cutting a whole chicken. Two easy sheet pan meals will be prepped to take home and cook later.

$65/person. Register by Sept. 3. All sales are final.

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

About the instructor

Leah Bodine calls herself the ‘accidental chef’ with years of experience in the food industry. She started her catering company, Blue Dragonfly Catering, to express her creative mind in food preparation and cultivating recipes. She loves sharing her skills with others and seeing the fascination on students’ faces when they realize how creative they can be and how easy it is to do so.

Her experiences in the food industry have led her to live in Paris and cater for rock and country legends.

Learn the foundational skills of watercolor at Beginning Watercolor from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Wednesdays, Sept. 11, 18, 25, and Oct 2 in The Studio. Instructor and former art educator Sally Walsh will walk participants through new techniques each week to create paintings focusing on landscapes, flowers, fruit, glass and special effects.

Pencils, erasers, clear plastic rulers, paper towels and spray bottles will be provided.

Participants should bring the following supplies:
— Basic pallet of cake watercolors (can be made available on request)
— Tube or cake watercolors
— Watercolor brushes of varying sizes
— Personal sketchbook or journal with paper suitable for watercolor (spiral bound is best)

$65/person. Register by September 4th. All sales are final.

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

About the instructor

Sally Walsh is a retired art teacher from Richland Community College in Decatur. She has more than 30 years of teaching experience and has led previous art classes at Allerton.

Experience Level: Beginner

Learn the basics of drawing the natural world at Drawing from Nature on Wednesdays, Sept. 11 through Oct. 2 from 1 to 3:30 p.m. in The Studio.

This course, led by retired art teacher Sally Walsh, is aimed at the beginner who has no drawing experience. Students will learn how to bring items from nature to life with shading and blending.

$65/person*. Register by Sept. 4. All sales are final.

*Students should bring:

— Spiralbound mixed media sketchbook in preferred size (9x12 is standard)
— No. 2 pencil
— Clear plastic ruler
— Kneaded eraser
— Pencil blending tool

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

About the instructor

Sally Walsh is a retired art teacher from Richland Community College in Decatur. She has more than 30 years of teaching experience and has led previous art classes at Allerton.

Experience Level: Beginner

Whether you want to learn to knit or just need a refresher, enroll in Knitting 101: Knitting for Beginners on Thursdays, Sept. 12 and 19 from 1 to 4 p.m. in The Studio.

Led by fiber artist Billie Theide, participants will learn the basics of knitting, including needle and yarn selection. Students will learn how to cast on, basic stitches, how to read work, fix mistakes, cast off and make fringe and pom poms. No previous experience is necessary.

$75/person* (Ages 13+; 13-17-year-olds must be accompanied by an adult, who does not need to register.) Register by Sept. 5. All sales are final.

*Students should bring one of these four supply options (and are advised to purchase them as soon as possible, since availability can change):

OPTION 1: — 2 skeins of Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick solid color yarn. This is classified as a Super Bulky 6 yarn made of 80 percent acrylic and 20 percent wool. There are 106 yards per skein. It is machine washable and can also be dry cleaned. — 1 pair of 9-inch long #13 (9.0mm) Clover brand straight bamboo knitting needles OR one 24-inch long #13 Clover circular bamboo knitting needles.

OPTION 2: — 2 skeins of Lion Brand Hometown solid color yarn. This is classified as Super Bulky 6 yarn made of 100 percent acrylic. There are 162 yards per skein (you can also purchase three, 81-yard skeins). It is machine washable. — 1 pair of 9-inch long #13 (9.0mm) Clover brand straight bamboo knitting needles OR one 24-inch long #13 Clover circular bamboo knitting needles.

OPTION 3: — 1 skein of Lion Brand Re-Spun Thick & Quick solid color yarn. This is classified as Super Bulky 6 yarn made of 100 percent acrylic. There are 223 yards per skein. It is machine washable and dryable. — 1 pair of 9-inch long #13 (9.0mm) Clover brand straight bamboo knitting needles OR one 24-inch long #13 Clover circular bamboo knitting needles.

OPTION 4: — 3 skeins of Lion Brand Hue + Me solid color yarn. This is classified as a Bulky 5 yarn made of 80 percent acrylic and 20 percent wool. There are 137 yards per skein. It is machine washable. — 1 pair of 9-inch long #10.5 (6.5 mm) Clover brand straight bamboo knitting needles or one 24-inch long #10.5 Clover circular bamboo knitting needles.

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

About the instructor

Billie Theide is a former chair of the Crafts Program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she was a 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: All Levels

Learn the skills of improvisation, including scene creation and team dynamics at Improve Your Improv on Thursdays, Sept. 5 through Oct. 17 in the Music Barn.

Kyle Tasch returns to The Farms to teach this popular course, which will be jam-packed with improvisational fun that will use both short-form games and long-form scenes in its sessions.

This will not be a place to sit down, hear lectures, and take notes, as students will be performing as much as possible! It will be a get-up-and-perform kind of class. The class will emphasize the mechanics needed to act out an entertaining and meaningful scene on the spot with no script.

Participants who have already completed this class are welcome to join again. Beginners and those experienced in improv are all encouraged to join! 

$100/person for the series or $25/class. Register for the entire series by Aug. 29 or one week before each subsequent class. All sales are final.

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

About the instructor

Kyle Tasch is an improvisor, improv teacher, filmmaker, writer, actor, comedian and musician from the Chicago suburbs. He started performing improv in 2004 and has been improvising in front of audiences regularly since 2015.

He has also taught classes both in-person and remotely at Westside Improv in Wheaton, Illinois. He performs live across the state in various comedy and music acts and has produced hundreds of videos and songs.

Experience Level: Some weaving experience needed

Continue your journey into the world of weaving at Beginning Weaving II from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 14-15 in the Greenhouse Auditorium.

This 2-day class with instructor Sharon Bowles will be a continuation of Beginning Weaving 1, but instead of everyone doing the same article, students will pick their own project, measure the warp, beam the warp, thread the heddles to their selected pattern, thread the reed, tie the warp to the cloth beam rod, wind bobbins and weave a sample of their selected yarn. Students will then weave samples from the other looms, giving them a wide variety of weave structures they can try out.

$235/person. Register by Sept. 7. All sales are final.

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

About the Instructor

Sharon Bowles has been weaving for 34 years and teaching beginning weaving for almost 33 years. She was taught to weave in a one-on-one class and wove 2 table runners in 12 (approximately) 2-hour lessons, and she teaches the same method.

Sharon has experience in weaving with silk, lace weaving, 8-shaft pattern weaving, parallel weaving, block weaves, and Shaker reproduction towels. She has taught many workshops and classes to weavers’ guilds in Florida, Ohio, and Champaign-Urbana. She earned her Journeyman certification from the Weavers Guild of Boston in 2021 and a master’s certification in April of 2022.

Most recently, Sharon taught Beginning Weaving I at The Farms, and a 2-day workshop in 4 shaft patterns for the Champaign-Urbana Spinners and Weavers Guild.

About The Farms

The Farms: An Allerton Folk School, offers classes, workshops, and gatherings focusing on art, health & wellness, history, nature & outdoor education, or science. All experiences value hands-on, experiential teaching and learning, and are facilitated by and for the members of the community.

See the complete fall class schedule here.