Plaited Handle

Whisk Broom Workshop

Sunday, February 9th, 1PM - 4PM

Marshall, NC

Spend an afternoon learning the Appalachian craft of broom making!

This class is open to total beginners as well as professional crafters. Participants will design and make an angel wing style whisk broom with a plaited handle using traditional broom corn straw and natural cordage. Whisk brooms are useful, attractive, and make great environmentally friendly tools for tending to a space. They are great for quickly cleaning tables and countertop surfaces or can be used to clean dust, dirt, and cobwebs from hard-to-reach spaces where a big broom can't get, such as behind kitchen appliances or toilets. Some people like to keep one in their car or near their fireplace to clean up ashes. They make excellent housewarming or wedding gifts and can also be used in a ritual or sacred space for energetic clearing purposes. If you've never had a whisk, you are missing out on the joy of using these handcrafted tools!

When: Sunday, February 9th, 2025 from 1PM - 4PM

Location: Woodson Branch Nature School, 14555 US Hwy 25/70, Marshall, NC

Cost: This workshop has sliding scale pricing which includes all materials: $50-$80, with scholarship spots available to people of the global majority (PGM) and those who have been displaced by Hurricane Helene. Please select a payment based on your financial resources. In other words, those with less financial resources should choose on the lower end of the pricing scale and those with greater financial resources should choose on the higher end of the pricing scale. See the Green Bottle Model for clarification and help self-selecting the appropriate payment. Additionally, paying on the higher end of the pricing scale helps support scholarship opportunities.

Age limit: 15+ or with special permission of instructor.  

Please note this class will exercise upper body muscles and will require use of both feet and hands while seated. There is a minimum of three participants in order to hold this event and a maximum of ten participants.

***TO REGISTER***: please email freawild@gmail(dot)com.

Facebook Event for this workshop 

🍉🫒🍉Wild Earth Crafts calls for an immediate ceasefire in G@za and Lebanon and an end to the occupation! 🍉🫒🍉

About the Instructor: Frea Forager (pronounced FREE-yuh; she/her) is the founder and craftswoman behind Wild Earth Crafts, an initiative that helps creative folks, educators, homesteaders, and lovers-of-the-outdoors learn to use natural, locally sourced, and wild-foraged materials to create beautiful and useful home goods. As a species, Frea believes we are more disconnected from the natural world than we have ever been. Through Wild Earth Crafts, Frea helps connect folks more deeply with their selves and the natural world so that we can collectively "weave the wild back into our lives" and be in deeper relationships with the land we live upon and steward. She has been an instructor at various earthskills gatherings, healing retreats, and craft workshops throughout the southeast since 2017. Her passions and specialties include wheel-thrown pottery, natural hide tanning, basket making, broom making, wild foraging, roadkill harvesting, wildschooling, and general woods rambling. Foraging is one of her greatest joys in life! She lives for gathering and crafting with various seeds, nuts, leaves, vines, and sticks and for sharing these joys with others. Originally from the Bulbancha area (colonially called greater New Orleans), she currently resides with her two children in the mountains on ᏣᎳᎫᏪᏘᏱ Tsalaguwetiyi (Cherokee, East), S’atsoyaha (Yuchi), and Miccosukee land - colonially known as Western North Carolina.