Skills Workshops

We welcome information about skills workshops open to ALHFAM members, living history professionals, and/or the general public for listing on the Skills Workshops page.  Workshops can be on any subject relating to historic trades and skills, professional museum skills, living history interpretation skills, as well as similar hands-on learning opportunities. The workshops may be part of a larger local, regional, national or international conference. 

The subject matter must be of interest to ALHFAM members and the organization or individual hosting the workshop must be an individual, institutional or business member of ALHFAM.  Workshops that do not meet these criteria will not be posted, and ALHFAM reserves the right to decline to post information. 

To have your workshop listed, please send the following information to webmaster@alhfam.org:

  • Workshop Subject/Title
  • Brief Workshop Description
  • Date(s) / Time(s)
  • Price 
  • Location (including full address)
  • Website address for registration information (registration itself can be available either online or via regular mail)
  • Contact information, including phone number

Skills Training opportunities that are not date specific are listed below the calendar. 

Upcoming events

  • No Naked Bedsteads Please - Dressing the Period Bed

    • 24 Oct 2025
    • 26 Oct 2025
    Join us for three days of historic bed dressing. Learn what fabrics and styles are appropriate for high and low post beds for your historic house or museum

    October 24th, 25th, and 26th, 2025
    The class is in person at Sanborn Mills Farm.

    What should a dressed bed look like for your historic house or museum?


    Beds were status, a way to show your wealth. Unlike today, the bed was the place for your fanciest fabrics and elaborate trims. And the bedstead was often located in a prominent place in the home. Entertaining while sitting in a bed, resting on a bed chair, or reclining on a nest of pillows was more common than you might think.

    But how to dress your bedstead can seem like an overwhelming project for a small house museum or even a larger mansion with many bedsteads.

    Spend three days at Sanborn Mills Farm and learn what your high post or low post, -yes they are dressed also- should look like and what fabrics would have been available.

    This workshop will look at common and high style bed dressing from the 17th through the 19th century. We can even talk about the Colonial Revival.

    We will dress a bed or two and share samples of all of the fabric possibilities available during each time period. English, French, Dutch, and German have their own take on what a proper bedstead should look like.

    The three day workshop will be a combination of lecture, hands on bed dressing and an opportunity to leave with samples of fabrics and trims for several periods and styles and a comprehensive bibliography

    No prior knowledge or experience is required for this class.

    For more information about this class contact

    Rabbit Goody
    rabbitgoodythw@gmail.com
    518-284-2729 at Thistle Hill Weavers

    or

    Marsha Grizwin
    Program Manager
    Sanborn Mills Farm
    603-435-7314
    www.sanbornmills.org


    Show details


ALHFAM

P.O. Box 308, Arlington, VT. 05250

 - info@alhfam.org

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