Class Descriptions
Mad Skills for Urban Self-Sufficiency
listed by category
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GREY means NOT YET OPEN FOR REGISTRATION, please check back later.
Pre-registration is required and exact location is given once you have registered.
TO START YOUR REGISTRATION PROCESS PROCEED TO REGISTER HERE
Many classes will repeat if there is enough interest. If a class is past or you do not get in on time,
please contact us and we will let you know if another session is forming.
Classes are for age 12 and up unless otherwise
indicated.
SKIP TO:
Fiber/Textiles/ Sewing
Foraging
Handcrafts
Health & Beauty
Permaculture
Tools & Building
Water & Power
Colors From Nature: Introduction to Natural Dyeing with Local Plants
Sunday, August 4 2013 2-6pm
Instructor: Deepa Presti Natarajan
Location: South Berkeley/Ashby BART
Cost: $40-70 plus $10 supply fee
In this class you will learn the basics of creating beautiful colors from local plant materials. We’ll explore familiar plant by-products that are common in the kitchen including onion skins, pomegranate skins and avocado pits as well as native plants and easily foragable materials. You'll leave the class with an understanding of how to apply basic dyeing techniques to a wide range of plants. We'll cover mordanting, fiber selection, color, and how to care for your textiles in an ecological way. You'll leave with a wealth of inspiration to dye all your own clothes as well as samples of plants and fibers
Felt The Sun: Introduction to Felting Natural Wool
Saturday September 28, 2013 10am-4pm
Instructor: Katharine Joida
Location: Canyon (just over the hill from Skyline Blvd)
Cost: $50-80 plus $10 supply fee
In this class you will learn to make wool felt, a non-woven textile made directly from the loose fibers. Starting with raw wool from Sonoma County sheep, each participant will make a durable felt bag or hat, embellished with buttons cut from antler or black walnut shells and braided wool trim. In this class you will also get to ride the Cyclocarder, Katharine's bicycle-powered drum carder, and learn about a new MPG - miles per garment.
From Fleece to Fiber - Spinning Wool to Yarn
Sunday September 29 2013 2-5pm
Instructor: Lou Grantham
Location: Oakland
Cost: $35-65
We will start by learning to evaluate a sheep's fleece to determine it's grade and use potential. We’ll then sort the fleece and learn how to scour (washed correctly) it. We’ll prepare the wahed fleece for spinning by carding (combing). We’ll learn and practice spinning on both hand spindles and the spinning wheel. We’ll learn about different types of spinning wheels available and how to get them as well as options for making hand spindles from commonly found objects such as a door knob, plastic CD, or home made clay disk.
Hand Sewing Basics
Sunday November 23 2013 10am-1pm
Instructor: K.Ruby Blume
Location: North Oakland
Cost: $35-65
Learn some needle & thread skills in this new class offering! We will learn basic stitches and processes in hand sewing for mending and for making small gifts such as camera & phone cases, sachest pillows and more. We will learn proper threading and knotting of a needle, 3 or 4 useful stitches, different types of seams, & hems as well as how to sew a button, darn socks and patch the hole in the knee of your favorite blue-jeans. You can bring things to mend or make several small stocking stuffers. This class is a must for folks who want to beef-up their reuse and repair chops.
Machine Sewing Basics
Sunday November 23 2013 2pm-5pm
Instructor: K.Ruby Blume
Location: North Oakland
Cost: $35-65
Has your sewing machine got you down? can't figure out how to thread it or remember how to make it go?
In this evening course we'll learn to proper threading and care of our machines and how to sew basic stitches to make perfect seams. Time allowing we'll look at a few repairs and hems that are easily managed for even the beginning sewer and talk about manageable fist sewing projects. Small class size, personalized instruction.
Soup & Salad Spring Foraging Expedition
Saturday April 20, 10am-2pm
Instructor: Tanya Stiller
Location: Berkeley
Cost $40-70 plus $5 supply fee in cash on day of class
In this class you will forage and taste greens and vegetables that you see every day, growing around your neighborhood. You will learn to identify, use and process both urban weeds and native East Bay edibles and explore which wild foods are best to eat raw in a salad, cooked into a spring soup, or used as medicinal tea. You will leave this class with a full belly, as well as an understanding of some traditional ethno-botanical uses of common East Bay plants and which may be safely harvested to eat. Bring clothing appropriate for weather, and comfortable walking shoes that can get dirty.
Wild Foods: Fall Foraging Expedition
Saturday October 5, 12noon-3pm
Instructor: Tanya Stiller
Location: Berkeley/Oakland Hills
Cost $35-65 plus $5 supply fee in cash on day of class
We'll stroll through the East Bay hills in search of Fall's bounty. Hoping to find fruits and berries still clinging to their plants and nuts just falling to the ground for us to gather. If we're lucky we'll find some edible bulbs or tubers. Common edible greens will also be discussed and identified. We'll have the opportunity to taste some of these delectables and learn how to process them.
Made BY Hand: Mosaic Making Intensive
Saturday March 2, 10am-4pm & Sunday March 3, 10am-1pm
Instructor: K.Ruby Blume
Location: North Oakland
cost:$200 supplies included limit to 5 participants
A thorough introduction to the wonderful world of mosaic tile setting. We’ll learn about substrates, adhesives and tools, options for materials including ceramic tile, glass and found materials, cutting and setting techniques, grout and how to use it. Each participant will create a finished 12 x 12 mosaic. Small class size and personalized instruction.
Made BY Hand: Ceramic Tile Fabrication
not currently offered, private lessons available
Instructor: K.Ruby Blume
Location: North Oakland
cost: $175-250 supplies included
limit to 5 participants
In this class we will learn the process of tile making from start to finish. We'll learn about both subtractive and additive sculpting procedures, mould casting, clay bodies, tile production and glazing. Each participant will complete one tile design and will press out a set to fire and glaze. Small class size and personalized instruction.
Made BY Hand: Introduction to Hand-building Ceramics
not currently offered, private lessons available
Instructor: K.Ruby Blume
Location: North Oakland
cost $175-250 supplies included
limit to 5 participants.
This class will introduce you to the wonderful world of earthen ceramics. We’ll learn about clay and glazes, tools, slab and coil construction techniques. You’ll gain a basic understanding of the alchemy of firing. With the techniques learned, you will be able to create both functional and decorative wares. Projects demonstrated will include, plates, cups and planters. You may also use the techniques to create you own designs. Personalized instruction. Course fee includes one bag of clay, one firing and basic glazes. Kiln rental is available for students who have completed this course.
DIY Local Medicine – Tinctures, Decoctions, Infusions & Syrups
Wednesday September 11 2013 6:30-9:30pm
Instructor: Riyana Rebecca Sang
Location: North Berkeley
Cost: $35-65 plus supply fee in cash on day of class
Along with re-learning vital skills such as growing and preserving food, it is also time to take health care back into our own hands. Everyone can learn basic preventative care and how to make a few natural remedies to care for themselves, their family and community. In this class you will learn to create "local medicine" from native, culinary and horticultural herbs right out of the garden! We'll learn about tinctures, decoctions , infusions and salves, how to make them,how to use them and the benefits of each. Working with seasonally available herbs that will tonify the body as we head into the winter season, each student will prepare a tincture, salve, and hand-blended tea to take home. You will also receive handouts herbal medicine making, a list of easily identifiable local plants which can be used for your health and resources for further study.
DIY Local Medicine -- Herbal Honeys & Medicinal Sweet Treats
Wednesday September 25 2013 6:30-9:30pm
Instructor: Riyana Rebecca Sang
Location: North Berkeley
Do you struggle to take the tea or tincture you know is good for you? Do your kids run the other direction the moment you say the word "herbal?" Our natural medicine is only effective if we use it! Learn how to make therapeutic herbal medicine that is delicious and effective. We'll learn about different methods of infusing honey with herbs; rare but potent methods of herbal healing such as electuaries, oxymels, and switchels that everyone in your family will love to take; and making herbal lozenges and other sweet treats. We'll also talk about which herbs to use seasonally for specific health concerns and which are best to use tonically all year round. Each student will prepare an herbal honey and at least one other sweet treat to take home -- we'll sample many more in class. You'll leave inspired and with resources galore to continue delving into this scrumptious holistic health craft!
DIY Spa: Home Facials
January 2014 TBA
Instructor: Tanya Stiller
Location: Berkeley
Cost: $40-70
We'll spend a lovely Sunday afternoon mixing together organic and natural kitchen ingredients into healthy scrubs, steams, masks, and moisturizers to nourish your face. Then you'll use the products we've created to give yourself a relaxing treatment or partner up with a new friend and practice giving a home facial. With the recipes provided, you'll be able to give yourself a facial every week, without waiting or paying the steep spa prices. The little bit of work involved in making the preparations, is easily balanced by the reduction in cost and the high quality of your new hand-crafted products which contain zero preservatives, zero dyes, and only natural fragrances.
Lather 101:
Saturday April 20 2013 1-5pm
Saturday November 9 2013 1-5pm
Instructor: Serena Bartlett
Location: North Oakland
Cost: $35- 65 plus $10 supply fee to be paid in cash on day of class
Making soap is so much fun! Join Serena Bartlett, travel author and DIY maven to learn the cold process method for making soap. You'll learn about the different types of bar soaps, how to balance your fats and alkalines with solid ratios, attributes of different plant oils, and fun things to add for various benefits like exfoliation or extra moisturizing. Then we'll walk through the process of making a batch of soap. We'll learn techniques for measuring and mixing, how to safely work with sodium hydroxide (lye), options for molding and details of the curing process . As an extra bonus we'll see how to turn these cold process bar soaps into liquid hand soap or shower gel, and you'll go home with samples and a cool recipe zine. Make bar formother's Day (session 1) or to give as holiday gifts (session 2)
Make Your Own Beauty Products: Luscious Lotions Revealed
Saturday July 27, 2013 2-5pm
Instructor: Lila Ann Frechette
Location: North Oakland
Cost: $35-65 plus $12 supply fee in cash on day of class
Learn how to make your own luscious lotions using a tried and true homespun method. We’ll explore the instructor’s apothecary, talk about herbs, oils, and everything else that make a great lotion. Lotions are a combination of oils and waters, but they can be much more too. The intentions and consciousness that we work with in their creation affect the end product. In this class, we’ll work with herbs that appeal to our senses: those that visually and aromatically delight us. Together we’ll craft a luscious lotion, an infused herbal oil and a lip balm for you to takehome. Plus, you’ll be equipped with the knowledge to make your next batch.
Toiletry Redux: Making Natural Toiletry Products At Home
Thursday October 10 2013 7-9:30pm
Instructor: Serena Bartlett
Location: North Oakland
Cost: $35- 65 plus $10 supply fee to be paid in cash on day of class
If you are learning to go make things from scratch why not extend that to your bathroom? Toothpaste, shampoo, body wash, moisturizer, hair conditioner, facial scrubs and bath salts are easily made with readily available materials at a fraction of the cost of their commercial counterparts—not to mention the great reduction in packaging and harsh chemicals. After a discussion of some of the problems with these commercial products we’ll dive into learning about making these things at home—how they may be different in terms of their use and storage. Then we’ll get started making our own. Each attendee will go home with a body wash formulated for their own skin type, a moisturizing mask and a recipe booklet with a dozen other recipes including toothpaste, conditioner, toner, shampoo, dog shampoo, detergent, facial scrubs and bath salts.
Wild Medicine: Natural Remedies from Garden Weeds
Saturday June 1, 2013 2-5pm
Instructor:Frieda Kipar Bay
Location: TBA
Cost: $35- 65 plus $10 supply fee to be paid in cash on day of class
Ever wonder if there is a use for all those weeds your garden (or the abandoned lot next door)? Many of our common garden weeds have medicinal properties that can help you when you get a bee sting, cut your thumb, or just need a good soak for sore muscles. We'll identify and learn to prepare some of these medicinal "weeds" and send you home with some tools to start to assemble your own natural first aid kit. This class will be geared towards beginners, so come with all your questions and we'll dive in! As a bonus, feel free to bring along any weed you are curious about--We'll identify it and learn about the medicine it may contain.
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Agricultural Tool Care.
Sunday March 3, 3-5pm
Instructor: Grant Marcoux
Location: Alameda
Cost: EBUUA members are free, General Puiblic $10-20
Tired of garden tools that bend and break? This course will introduce the urban farmer to the proper selection, use and care of agricultural hand tools such as shears, axes, shovels, machetes, hoes and garden forks. Students will learn about tool construction, proper use and care of tools and the use of tool maintenance equipment such as sharpening files, stones and lubricants. The goal is to provide you the knowledge to select and maintain tools commonly used in small-plot agriculture. Students should bring at least one tool to sharpen. Purchasing a tool file (about $10) and a "Canoe Stone" (about $10) is very helpful, but not mandatory(we’ll send information on where to purchase before the class)
Knife Sharpening and Tool Care
Saturday August 3 2013 2-6pm
Instructor: Grant Marcoux
Location: Alameda
Cost $40-70
Tired of knives that just won't cut the mustard (or anything else)? Join blacksmith and cutler Grant Marcoux for course in kitchen and field cutlery sharpening. Learn about knife construction, steel types and how to get the perfect edge on your knives. The goal is to provide the student with the knowledge to maintain their own knives. Students will learn the techniques of hand-sharpening using the oil-stone, steel and strop. Students should bring at least one knife to sharpen. Purchasing a 5" or greater sharpening stone (about $15-20) is very helpful, but not mandatory. As a bonus we'll also talk about other metal tools, their care and upkeep.
Hand Tools for Homesteaders: How to Hammer a Nail and Other Fantastic Stories
not currently offered
Instructor:Stewart Port
Location: Oakland, Embarcadero
Cost: $60-90 plus $12 supply fee to be paid on day of class
Ever wonder how a skinny pipe can hold up the corner of a three story building but your massively framed chicken coop keeps leaning no matter how many 2 x 4s and drywall screws you add to it? Or maybe you just sit at your window, watching it while it slides ever further towards the ground, because you lack the confidence to take up the tools. In this class we hope to demystify some of the basics of construction and repair, giving you a handful of skills to be more productive and efficient around the homestead. We will focus on tasks that can be accomplished with just the power of your body or a few basic hand tools: the hammer, the saw and the drill. We will learn about marking and measuring, (including straightness and how to get it), selection of materials, how to cut stuff up, how to put it together, and how to keep your fingers while doing it. We will learn proper and efficient use of the handsaw, drills, hammer and nails and put the skills to practice building a simple (yet elegant!) tool box to take home.
Natural Building in the Urban Fabric
not currently offered
Instructor: Massey Burke
Location: El Sobrante
Cost: $50-85
We live in cities that need to be reinvented ecologically. Natural building is an accessible and practical way to explore the creation of ecological life in the city. This course offers an hands-on introduction to the basic materials of natural building: clay soil, sand, and straw; and discusses what forms of natural building can be beneficially integrated into your home and into the urban fabric. We'll tour the class site,a 1/3 of and acre suburban lot, which currently has four structures built of different natural materials and then get our hands in the mud and practice working with natural materials.
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Cooking with the Sun: Building and Cooking With Solar Ovens Saturday July 27, 2013 2-6pm Instructor: David Glaser Location : Berkeley, Curtis near Dwight Cost: $40-70 This class will be an introduction to solar cookers and food preparation with solar energy. There will be a lecture/discussion about the theory and practice of solar heating devices, how to build them, where to obtain specialty materials, and how to use them. Several devices will be on display, including a solar box oven, a parabolic cooker, a food dehydrator, perhaps more. EWe'll learn how to contruct them and, weather permitting, we’ll watch them in action. We’ll discuss some of the successes and failures in using them and sample some foods cooked on site in the oven. |
Home-Scale Aquaponics and Organic Hydroponics
Sunday October 20 4-7pm
Instructor: Nathan Kaufmann
Cost: $35-65
Learn to garden without the use of expensive and environmentally taxing fertilizers! This class will introduce you to the theory and practice of low-tech home-scale aquaponics, a system of raising fish and plants together in a symbiotic relationship, where each supports the other. With an established, functional low tech system as our guide, we'll learn how it all works, including types of fish and plants well suited to the system, options for assembling your own home system from readily available materials and troubleshooting. You will receive a resource list and plans to take home.
Land Use and Zoning for Urban Homesteaders
Thursday May 23, 6-9pm
Instructors: Lisa Feldstein
Location: TBA
Cost: $35-65
Do you wonder if your city permits residents to keep chickens or bees in their backyards? Have you ever tried track down the answer but had trouble navigating the city code, understanding the language or sorting out contradictory information? Or perhaps you gave up in despair when the city planner starting throwing around terms like “CEQA”, “Discretionary Review”, or “Performance Standards”? This class will teach you how to find, understand, and apply local land use regulation and policy as well as how to interact with your jurisdiction’s planners. You’ll leave with skills in reading zoning maps, understanding policy and regulatory language, and how to effect change to make your community more hospitable to urban homesteading. The class will be tailored to the home communities of the students, so it will be both relevant and immediately useful.
Water
not currently offered
Instructor: Laura Allen
Location:TBA
Cost: $30-60
Water is the unseen, often under-appreciated precious resource that sustains our lives. Because fresh potable water is so vital, the struggle to obtain or maintain access to it is worldwide. Many of us recognize the need to be better informed and make wiser choices with water use, but lack the inspiration or know how to move forward. This class will include lecture, slideshow, discussion and strategizing. You'll learn about where our water comes from, some of the politics around it and survey the options for using water more wisely in the urban landscape. We'll get inspired by creative uses of greywater, rainwater harvesting, composting toilets, permeable pavements, large scale water remediation projects and communities who brought back their dried up springs and creeks by reshaping the land to catch the rain. Then we'll assess your water usage and strategize which techniques will be easiest for you to adapt to use your water more wisely.
Permaculture
Urban Permaculture Crash Course
Saturday June 15 10am-4pm
Instructors: TBA
Location: TBA
Cost:$75-105
Have you ever wanted to know more about permaculture, but can’t afford the time or money for a two week design course? This one day crash course will introduce you to the ethics and principles of permaculture and give you a taste of what it is all about. Contrary to popular belief, permaculture is not just about sustainable agrticulture. It stands for “permanent culture” and is a collection of three intersecting ethics and sixteen principles that can be applied to any system to close the loop and make it more self-sustaining. At its core, Permaculture is about caring for and improving our world: leaving it in better shape than it was when we arrived, so to speak. Mixing it up with lecture, discussion, break-out groups, observation exercises and dynamic leadership, we’ll take you through the core concepts of permaculture using the Algarden and adjoining urban farm to observe permaculture put to practice. We’ll learn about stacking functions, slow and small solutions, urban food forests plant guilds and how to harness the power of nature to work less and produce more in our efforts to create a world of beauty and abundance.
One Day Urban Permaculture Adventure for Families
For youth 6-10 and their parent(s)
Saturday July 14, 2013 10am-3:30pm
Instructor: K.Ruby Blume
Location: North Oakland
1 parent, 1 child $75-105
1 parent, 2 children or 2 parents, 1 child :$90-125
In this day-long experience we'll be exploring the theory and practice of urban permaculture through touching tasting smelling and playing. We'll check out the animals and plants at Beegrrl Gardens including rabbits, bees and quail, talk how plants and animals work well together in an agricultural system and explore other features on the site such as greywater and mushroom beds. Core principles of permaculture will be introduced through games of observation that encourage family members to work together. We'll be tasting both wild and cultivated plants from the garden, observing honeybees and native pollinators at work, seeing natural honey combs (and tasting honey!) and letting the day unfold as guided by our ever inquisitive young people. We'll harvest some food from the garden and prepare it as part of a potluck lunch. After lunch we'll embark on a homesteading project where we make a simple cheese and butter together for you to take home.