From Garden to Basket: Field and Forest Crafts Reconnects Shoreline with Nature Through Creativity
What if your next craft project started not at the craft store, but right outside your door? At Field and Forest Crafts, Erin teaches the art of turning locally and responsibly gathered plants into beautiful, useful creations. From natural jewelry and wild crafting to intricate basket weaving, her North City workshops invite participants to work with their hands and discover the incredible abundance of the Pacific Northwest.
Erin has grown Field and Forest Crafts from quirky little baskets woven from daylily leaves and Pacific trailing blackberry to a full-time wild crafting business and basketry willow farm. Through year-round workshops, Field and Forest Crafts offers a peaceful place to learn a new skill while building a deeper connection to the plants, seasons, and landscapes that make this region so special.
Q & A with Erin Founder and Creator at Field and Forest Crafts
Q: What inspired you to start your business?
A: I've always been crafty. But when I learned that I could gather sustainable, compostable and renewable craft supplies from my own garden...I was hooked. It started with quirkly little baskets made of daylily leaves or pacific trailing blackberry and turned into full-time wild crafting business and a basketry willow farm! I knew very early that I wanted to teach, to share, to encourage others to play with plants too. And here we are.
Q: What service does your business provide for our community?
A: I offer beginner and intermediate basket weaving and wild crafting workshops that celebrate the abundant and diverse flora of the Pacific Northwest. Crafting with only locally and responsibly gathered materials, I help people reconnect with nature and the seasonality of life. From 2 hour simple natural jewelry workshops to 2-day fairy basket classes - I try to keep it interesting and most importantly local!
Q: Why is your business based in Shoreline?
A: I wanted to find a tranquil place where my students could get away from the hustle and bustle - to feel a little "out of the city". Shoreline offered me a way to be close to everything but also tucked away in a quiet and welcoming neighborhood. Hooray for North City!
Q: What inspires you each day?
A: The abundance and generosity of nature. If we care for nature, it will care for us. If we tend our gardens, if we steward our wetlands, if we are in relationship with the land and plants around us, they give back in so many ways. I've lived in the Puget Sound for over 20 years but it wasn't until I started my wild crafting and foraging journey that started to truly build a connection to this place, a responsibility of care, a celebration of our glorious part of the world. I love our seasons marked by rain and dandelions, by long sunny days and cattails.
Q: What has been your proudest moment in business so far?
A: When students come back for class after class. That is one of the greatest compliments a teacher can get.
Q: What’s your next upcoming event?
A: I teach workshops year round with easy registration on my website. But with the holiday season approaching, I'll also be at the Market in the Greenhouse at Sky Nursery on Saturday, Nov 14th and hosting my own Winter Market and Open House on Saturday, Dec 5th at my Shoreline location.
Connect with Field and Forest Crafts
Field and Forest Crafts
1608 NE 179th St
Shoreline, WA
206-265-2145
erin@fieldandforestcrafts.com
www.fieldandforestcrafts.com
Instagram: @fieldandforestcrafts
