Day 1 | Waldorf Practical Arts Training
Welcome to Day 1 of Waldorf Practical Arts Training module 7, Monday, June 23, 2025
Welcome to day one of the Waldorf practical arts training. We began each morning with our lecture series. While books are not required, titles are recommended and books and the lectures can be read or listen to outside of class.
Following the lecture, we move into our first workshop of the day. We start off with hard crafts. Our instructor, Jack, leads us through the project for the week. For this module, we are doing two main projects. We’re working with wood carving using basswood, with optional block printing, followed by two days of copper work. In our previous module, we spent the entire six days working with copper making bowls, ladles, and other things. But, with this module, we are re-introducing copper in order to make items with metal designs called chasing. you can make impressions in the copper if it is thin enough or a kneeled with a set of tools in order to make illustrations or designs. Since I had a project from my previous module that I didn’t finish, I opted to work on small copper bowls when that part of the mantle came around. For today, we were introduced to wood carving and block printing. We were advised to use simple designs, Landscape, nature, etc. You could do a geometric design as well.
I chose to do lettering, which is not advised and is more complicated. In retrospect this definitely wasn’t a good idea, as the fine pieces of my lettering broke off, and the design will need to be modified. On the first day, no one really started carving as we spent the majority of the time coming up with our design and drying it on the wood.
Following this session, we had a short break for lunch before we started our soft craft session. For soft crafts, we are doing a log cabin quilt as well as other quilting designs. We will be doing some Sashiko stitching as well and for those who wish, they can do Eco printing during open studio. We start out by sketching our design for our log cabin quilt, using color pencils. This was just to get the look of the design so that we could understand how the quilting pattern was going to be sewn. Next, we chose some colors and cut strips one and a half inches wide.
We started hands stitching a few rows before our session was over and open studio began during open studio. You may work on your own project or work on the project that is offered by the handwork teacher, Mona. However, as it was the first day of open studio we did not start on our Eco printing instead, everyone worked on their log cabin quilt.
These intensive trainings run three times a year: February, April and June. You may join anytime. There are a total of 9 modules (3 year program) with each module including a soft and hard craft.
Participants may also join online but I recommend in person if possible! The energy of working together and being inspired by other students and the feeling of community is unmatched.
Learn more by checking the Waldorf Practical Arts Training. If learning more about the hard and soft crafts taught in a Waldorf school, this program may be right for you!
Check out the other programs offered by WISC to see if there’s a certification that aligns with your goals. Waldorf institute of Southern California
Here are some of the books we covered for this module:
Practical Training in Thought, The Seven Core Principles of Waldorf Education, Balance in Teaching: (CW 302a) (Volume 11) (Foundations of Waldorf Education), Mona Lewis (soft crafts instructor) Sun Sprite Handwork on Instagram.
