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Powell River, BC
Multiple Sunday and occasional Saturday afternoons Jan 13 to May 26 at Sycamore Commons (Townsite Anglican Church) and other Powell River locations.

This series of workshops, classes and demos covers a variety of homesteading topics including baking, gardening, and crafts. Many sessions are hands-on and all are taught by local experts. You can attend as many classes as you wish.

Class Schedule

Date
Sun Jan 13	FULL Make Your Own Energy Bars
Sun Jan 20	CANCELLED Get Out of Debt
Sat Feb 2	Sell Your Crafts	Exploration in Free Form Crochet – Creating Knozlers
Sun Feb 10	Family Cookie Baking – bring your kids!
Sun Feb 24	Vintage Sewing Machine gathering at Fibre Space
Sun Mar 3	Rough Puff Pastry
Sat Mar 16	Seedy Saturday at the Complex – UHSPR will have a table there
Sun Mar 17
Sat Mar 23	Starting Plants from Seed Indoors	FULL Make a Wet-Felted Vessel with Vanessa Sparrow
Sun Mar 31	Under the Sea in Stitches: Sew a Seascape at Kristin Miller’s studio in Wildwood	Sun Apr 14: Make More Plants for Free! Cuttings and Divisions
Sun Apr 21	Drip Irrigation for Dry Summers at Kevin’s garden in Cranberry

These sessions aim to be zero waste and support local producers. Please help us reduce our carbon footprint by carpooling, biking, walking or using the bus to get to and from the sites.

Location

Most sessions take place at Sycamore Commons at the Townsite Anglican Church, 6310 Sycamore St. Please enter through the rear basement doors. Bus route 1 stops right outside, or across from, the church.

Cost

• Each workshop is individually priced. Materials fees are included in the price.
• Part Scholarships are available – contact Kevin directly: 604 483 9052 or kevin@kevinrwilson.ca
• Work trades are available

Deposit of $20 on registration, please – see registration form

Class Details

Rough Puff Pastry

Sun Mar 3, 2:30 pm

Learn how to make flaky, puffy Rough Puff pastry for fancy baking that doesn’t take forever. This is a hands-on workshop, expect to get floury. You will leave with pastry treats to take home.

Cost: $35 includes ingredients
Length: 2 hr
What to bring: Large mixing bowl or ice cream bucket or similar large lidded container (to use as a mixing bowl and a take-home container), rolling pin. Optional: pastry board or cloth, apron.
Instructor: Kevin Wilson
Location: Sycamore Commons

Starting Plants from Seed Indoors

Sat Mar 23, 2 pm

Now is the perfect time in our climate to start tomatoes, peppers, brassicas and more, for planting outside later in the spring. We’ll discuss seeds, soil, containers, light needs, watering, and equipment, then get down to planting. You will take home multiple planted containers, plus plans for a home-built folding light stand that can grow up to 432 small plants (in 6-packs) or 108 larger ones (in 3-4″ pots) in 2.5′ x 4.5′ floorspace.

Cost: $35
Length: 2 hr
What to bring: Everything required will be supplied, but feel free to bring along seeds you want to plant.
Instructor: Kevin Wilson
Location: Sycamore Commons

FULL Make a Wet-Felted Vessel 

Sat Mar 23, 2 pm

This class will introduce you to the process of making a small vessel by wet felting wool over a resist. You’ll be surprised by how easy this is and the variety of fabulous effects you can create! A basic knowledge of wet felting is useful but not necessary; you will be taken through the method step-by-step and given handouts to take home.

Cost: $60, including materials
Length: 2.5 hr
What to bring: TBA
Instructor: Vanessa Sparrow
Location: Sycamore Commons

Make More Plants for Free

Sun Apr 14, 10 am

Many types of plants can be propagated using “vegetative” methods, where you use part of a plant to make a new one exactly like the parent plant. This class will focus on two methods: stem cuttings and division. We will create new plants from the existing plants at Sycamore Commons, keep some to be replanted at the Commons, and you will get to take home divisions and cuttings for your own yard. Then you can use these methods to make more of plants you already own, or have permission to work on.

Cost: $30
Length: 2 hr
What to bring: Garden fork if you have one, pots to carry plants in. Dress for the weather, class is outside.
Instructor: Kevin Wilson
Location: 5865 Mowat Ave in Cranberry

Under the Sea in Stitches: Sew a Seascape 

Sun Mar 31, 11am – 3pm

Depict the colourful world beneath the waves in a 12” by 16” textile artwork. Learn 3-D appliqué, fabric sculpting, impromptu design, and free-motion stitching.

No prior experience needed. The Intuitive improvisational design process will lead to creative outcomes. The focus is on easy big-stitch hand-sewing to create sculpted and 3-D appliqued effects; and free-motion machine stitching for ‘growing’ natural looking sea-weed.

 

Cost: $60 includes materials
Length: 4 hr
What to bring: Kristin will provide beautiful hand-dyed or batiked fabrics for the background, and a vast array of unusual, exotic, and colourful scraps and threads for creating the underwater scenes. Sewing supplies will be available to use, but students should bring their own scissors if possible. Bringing a small sewing kit is optional.
Instructor: Kristin Miller
Location: Kristin’s studio in Wildwood. Exact location will be supplied on registration.
See more of Kristin’s work at her website

   

Drip Irrigation for Dry Summers

Sun Apr 21, 2:30 pm

Our summers reliably include a period of 2 months or more with no rain. Drip irrigation is one way of making sure your garden survives, without wasting water. Kevin’s drip irrigation system has been growing and changing since 2004. See the many different types of watering devices you can use in these systems, and get hands-on experience installing a new section. If there is time, we will also look at the early stages of installing water barrels: choosing locations, diverting downspouts, and getting a spigot into a barrel.

Cost: $25
Length: 2 hr
What to bring: note-taking materials. Dress for the weather, class is outside.
Instructor: Kevin Wilson
Location: 5865 Mowat Ave in Cranberry

Registration

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Please send your registration using the button above, then pay your $20 deposit using one of these methods:

• Email bank transfer to kevin@kevinrwilson.ca
• Paypal:
  
• Cash or check (made out to Kevin Wilson): send to or drop off at 5865 Mowat Ave, Powell River, BC, V8A 4C2

Cancellation policy
50% refund up to 2 weeks before
No refund after that but you are welcome to send a substitute

Part scholarships are available – contact Kevin directly: 604 483 9052 or kevin@kevinrwilson.ca