Visions Enrichment Classes

Welcome to ETR Farm Co

I’m Coleen Castro, Director/Teacher

In the early 1990’s (that sounds really old!), I began my fiber art journey with four alpaca and 20lbs of fiber from their first shearing. I headed down the rabbit hole into fiber art for the next 5 years focusing on alpaca fiber and adding in angora rabbits just for fun. I purchased a drop spindle and began to teach myself how to spin. I quickly learned to wash alpaca fiber. And naturally began exploring wet felting from a library book. It wasn’t too long before I was introduced to tri-looms and weaving. I never stopped having my hands in fiber and during COVID I dipped my toes into scouring raw sheep fleeces. I have been a fiber artist for over 20 years. In 2023 I became a Scour Master and began exploring raw sheep breeds. I am blessed to have a small farm in Orangevale, CA where I raise two alpaca fiber males and a small warren of angora rabbits. I totally love to share my knowledge with others. I have been teaching kids and adults in several different situations for over 30 years. I hope you’ll consider a course or two with me!

Visions In Education

Enrichment Vendor

Fiber Arts and Agricultural/Animal Science

We offer hands-on projects relating to math and science in an urban homesteading atmosphere on our Micro Fiber Farm in Orangevale for students ages 8-14. Each week throughout the school year we will rotate between urban gardening, fiber farming, fiber arts including spinning and scouring fiber, weaving, wet & needle felting, natural dyeing, hand-built pottery, and nature/animal arts. Classes will be held outside around the farm or on the back patio. Please email coleen@etrfarm.org with any questions and to tour our farm before beginning classes.

Date: Fridays from September 18, 2026 to May 21, 2027
Time: 1-4pm
Cost: $65 per class/$240 per month
Class size: 8 students
Ages: 8-14 yr old

Some of the things students will learn:

Fiber Farming will give students an opportunity to experience animal husbandry of alpacas and angora rabbits. Caring for these animals will be explored and students will have hands-on experience.
Urban gardening will teach students to design a garden to feed their family and animals. Study beneficial bugs and how to care for them. Look at the science behind composting and fertilizer. Using math skills to figure out how many plants are needed for their family and animals. Learn to understand seed packets and plant for each season. Students will learn the health benefits of different herbs, how to grow and harvest them.
Students will learn to use a Turkish spindle to spin roving into yarn both from natural colors and dyed fiber. They will calculate the warps per inch and yardage of their skeins. We will take a deeper dive by learning how to skirt a raw fleece, cold soak it, wash and dry it. They will experience carding the fiber with hand carders in preparation of spinning it into yarn. Each student will create a skein(s) of yarn.
Using math skills students will learn to figure out the amount of cotton string needed to warp (vertical threads) a simple balsa wood loom and how much yarn they will need for the weft (horizontal threads) to weave their own bookmark. They will move on to learning tapestry weaving techniques with different types of yarn and fabric. Then using those skills students will learn about other ways and items to weave.
As a class science project students will use wool, warm/hot water, soap, and pressure to create felt, pictures, and vessels. They will also learn needle felting a dry felting technique using needles to interlock loose fibers to create sculpted objects or to embellish wet felted pictures.
We will explore using plants to create dyes or make designs on fabric. Students will create hand-built pottery and nature/animals art in other mediums.