Discover eight Colorado spots that are reviving heritage crafts and the joy of creating by hand.
Within all of us lies a longing to return to what once was, whether that means reflecting on the past or maybe even a deep-down aching for a time before we existed. I often wish I could return to Christmas morning as a 7-year-old, go to a high school football game with my friends again, drink hot chocolate on a snow day, or take another road trip with my siblings. Maybe what I’m really craving is simplicity—an antidote to the constant distractions and noise that now follow me everywhere.
I think many of us also feel a similar nostalgia for a time before technology occupied so much of our lives. A time when boredom was a normal part of the day rather than something to be immediately remedied by scrolling. In those moments when there was “nothing else to do,” you might have embroidered a piece of fabric, knitted a scarf, or whittled a stick. Whatever the activity, those quiet moments were often filled with creation rather than consumption.
In an age of mass communication and mass production, we’re constantly connected, surrounded by things made quickly and cheaply, and rarely without something vying for our attention. Many of us are looking for ways to anchor ourselves to something more tangible—a place, a culture, a community, or a skill passed down through generations. Or perhaps we’re searching quiet contemplation, the satisfaction of learning something new, or the simple joy of making something with our own hands.
All of these longings have led to the recent revival of heritage crafts. Heritage crafts are defined as traditional skills like weaving, pottery, embroidery, woodworking, and other forms of handcraft that have been practiced and passed down through generations, and they’re trending around the world, including here in Colorado.
If you’re looking to learn a traditional skill, reconnect with an old craft, or spend a little less time looking at a screen, here are some workshops, classes, and spaces across the state where you can get started.
Rocky Mountain Folk School
Location: Main building: 315 Pitkin Dr, Grand Lake, CO 80447; Grand Spirit Makerspace: 1128 Park Ave, Unit A, Grand Lake, CO 80447
Nestled in the beauty of Grand Lake, Rocky Mountain Folk School was founded in 2021. What began as a small, volunteer-led program has grown into a year-round school offering more than 400 classes to 1,000 students.
At RMFS, learning is hands-on and rooted in traditional crafts, with an emphasis on learning for learning’s sake rather than evaluation. Classes cover everything from shoe repair, metalworking, and jewelry-making to leatherwork, woodworking, pottery, gourd art, glass art, fiber art, and even ice sculpture.
Craftsman & Apprentice
Location: 2655 N. Downing St., Denver, CO 80205
Located in Denver, Craftsman & Apprentice is a community workshop where you can put down your phone and make something with your hands. The studio offers plenty of craft opportunities for kids, but on Friday nights, it opens its doors exclusively to adults. With three classroom spaces stocked with tools, supplies, and all kinds of creative projects, there’s plenty of room to experiment. You can choose an existing craft or project, or gather supplies and see where your creativity takes you.
Reservations are strongly suggested, and they can be made online.
Groundwork
Location: Various locations throughout Colorado
Groundwork, a Colorado nonprofit, has a Folk School that offers hope for a less industrial future. Its classes help you to learn skills that predate industrial culture and rediscover what your mind and body can create with materials from the natural world. Classes take place throughout Colorado and cover everything from willow basketry and hide tanning to fiber arts, natural dyes, woodworking, and carving. You might harvest willow and weave it into a basket, turn an animal hide into leather, or process wool into yarn. For those who want to go deeper, Groundwork also offers longer workshops, lasting two to seven days, that combine multiple skills or focus on a single craft.
You can see class locations, dates, and prices on its website.
Trinidad History Museum
Location: 120 S. Chestnut St., Trinidad, CO, 81082
The Trinidad History Museum, one of History Colorado’s 11 museums, hosts a Heritage Arts Series on the first Saturday morning of the month. These hands-on workshops explore the history, techniques, and cultural traditions behind heritage crafts, and are led by local artists who will guide you through each process. It’s a chance to learn skills passed down through generations while hearing the stories behind them. Upcoming workshops include colcha embroidery in November and pine needle basket weaving in December.
You can register for the classes here.
Washington Heights Arts Center
Location: 6375 W. 1st Ave, Lakewood, CO 80226
Housed in a renovated schoolhouse that first opened in 1898, Lakewood’s Washington Heights Arts Center offers a space for all ages to explore arts and crafts. The former school, which closed in 1968, has since found new life as a community arts center, where it offers classes in pottery, weaving, drawing, painting, fiber arts, jewelry and metals, mosaics, and more. For adults, classes range from learning to throw pottery on the wheel to weaving scarves on a loom. There are also multi-day workshops focused on specific projects and techniques, along with self-directed studio time for current students who want to keep practicing outside of class.
You can view all the classes, prices, and dates here.
Laughing Coyote
Location: 10152 N 65th Street, Longmont, CO 80503
Located in Longmont, Laughing Coyote is all about connecting with the natural world and rediscovering skills that have been part of human life for generations. Before we could buy everything we needed, people relied on their surroundings to make tools, weave fibers, build fires, and create the things they needed to live. At Laughing Coyote, those skills become a way to get your hands dirty, learn from the landscape, and reconnect with nature and a part of yourself that modern life often leaves behind.
Laughing Coyote offers homeschool and summer programs for kids, along with skills workshops for people of all ages. You can try your hand at basketry, spinning, pottery, or making cordage from natural fibers; you’ll learn both how to make something and how to transform raw materials into something useful.
ReCreative Denver
Location: 765 Santa Fe Drive, Denver, CO, 80204
A pile of fabric scraps, a ball of leftover yarn, a shirt with a hole in the elbow. With a little know-how, these things can become the starting point for something new rather than something to throw away. ReCreative Denver is a nonprofit creative reuse center that collects donated arts and craft supplies and makes them available to the community at affordable prices.
ReCreative also offers workshops where you can learn skills like sewing, embroidery, knitting, and garment alterations. Its free weekly Sewing Lounge is a place to bring your own project and get advice from experienced sewists. Though ReCreative approaches crafting through creative reuse, its offerings touch on the older tradition of making the most of what you already have by knowing how to mend what is broken and finding value in things that might otherwise be discarded.
Flax & Twine
Location: 4105 Jackson Street, Denver, CO 80216
Flax & Twine is a little different from the other spots on this list. It’s not a school or workshop where you go to learn a skill. Instead, it’s a shop where you can find everything you need to create something on your own. Based in Denver, Flax & Twine centers around the belief that everyone is a maker. Owner and designer Anne Weil creates beautiful craft projects ranging from simple ones to more involved projects that take a little extra time and practice.
The kits come with carefully sourced natural fibers, tools, detailed instructions, and step-by-step videos, so you don’t have to figure everything out yourself. You might weave linen coasters, knit a blanket, make a basket from natural fibers, or embroider a kitchen towel. Flax & Twine makes crafts people have practiced for generations more approachable for a new generation of makers.
