Quilting with Denyse Schmidt via Make Workshop
(1069 Connecticut Ave, Bridgeport, CT; 800-621-9017; makeworkshop.com, $240, plus $20 sewing machine rental.)

Denyse Schmidt is arguably the quilting world’s biggest star. To wit, when I purchased my supplies at Soho’s Purl, a nearby shopper overheard who I would be learning from and almost fell to the floor in a paroxysm of jealous glee. Schmidt (dsquilts.com) has made a business of turning a craft rooted in traditional patterns and practices a bit on its head. Her bold designs sell at high-end shops like Takashimaya and ABC Home. After being approached by Make Workshop, a DIY bastion in the LES, Schmidt began teaching a five-hour seminar every few months at her Bridgeport, CT headquarters.

The class is designed to help quilters break free from the bounds of color schemes and predesignated patterns. “So many of us, including me, get stuck when faced with being creative,” Schmidt explains.

The session I took was composed of eight women, many of whom have been quilting for years. (It was my first attempt.) We sat at our stations, complete with a rotary blade ($24), a clear gridded ruler ($20), and a cutting mat ($25) and blindly pulled bits of fabric from three brown bags labeled, small, medium and large. The rules were simple: You had to use what you grabbed, even if it defied all aesthetic sensibilities—muted floral pinks were pieced together with acidic yellows, brown polka dots joined green plaids. As a novice, I was initially more focused on maneuvering the sewing machine and avoiding losing bits of my fingers to the rotary blade than I was on the mishmash of fabric that was growing in front of me; but I could hear those around me balk at the bits that emerged from their clutches. Later, as Schmidt put our pieces on the wall we examined the results—ultimately, the rectangles, divorced from any decision-making on our parts, were quite lovely.

By the end of the class, we’d each made about six rectangles, a significant part of the top of a quilt. I picked up enough skills to finish my initial attempt—and maybe even make a baby quilt for one of my friends’ kids. I’ve always wanted to make one, but assumed it was too difficult. I learned you actually don’t need to know about quilting to make a quilt. In fact, Schmidt’s method works best if you’re uninhibited by traditional notions. —Elise Loehnen

Photo: Mardi Miskit

Glassblowing at UrbanGlass
(57 Rockwell Pl between Fulton St and DeKalb Ave, Fort Greene, 718-625-3685, urbanglass.org. Ten-session beginning glassblowing class $725, weekend workshop $400, private lesson $89/hour.)

I’ve always been adept at art, but when it comes to its creative counterpoint, “crafts,” I’m hopeless. A foray into copper enameling left emotional (and physical) scars. Whatever I made in pottery class was uniformly referred to as “an ashtray,” even though no one in my family smoked. My recent stab at knitting was quite literal. So it was with trepidation that I walked into Urban Glass, where education director John West was going to show me how artisans have been manipulating glass since the Roman Empire. As I entered the studio, the first thing I noticed was the temperature. With the furnaces running 24 hours a day, the heat is palpable. But the glassmongers don’t seem to notice. John gives me a quick walk-through and fills me in on some safety protocols.

With John shadowing, I dipped a hollow metal rod into a sea of white-hot silica and extracted it, careful not to hit anything. The term glassblowing is misleading: A great deal of time is spent twirling your rod, trying to keep the molten glass at the end from drooping, and reheating the viscous mass repeatedly to add volume. Over the course of several hours, my technique improved and, eventually, I had two pieces to place in the annealer (a space for slowly cooling the glass).

Several days later, I had my projects. The paperweight was beautiful, if I do say so myself. I wondered if John had replaced my disastrous efforts with his own handiwork, until I laid eyes on my drinking glass. The lip curved and the yellow pigment I chose formed random polka-dots. I loved it like a mother loves her gawky child. I had finally managed to make some knickknacks without blowing anything up or sustaining a wound. And I connected with my primal ancestors in a way most civilized men never do. That beats macramé any day. —Dan Avery

Photo: Jeff Gurwin

California Cabernets, Morrell Wine Store
(1 Rockefeller Plaza at 49th St, 212-688-9370; store.morrellwine.com. $70)

I’ve never considered myself terribly knowledgeable when it comes to wine; my method of selection has historically come down to two variables: (1) if a bottle is under $15, and (2) if it’s not a chardonnay. Nevertheless, my fiancé and I are huge fans of the stuff, to the point that our shared love of the grapes led us to choose California’s Napa Valley as our honeymoon spot. We realized, however, that with three months left until the big day, we still knew next to nothing about the main attraction of our chosen destination.

So we enrolled in a class on California Cabernets offered by Morrell & Company at its Rockefeller Center shop. The store offers other classes too, including introductory courses at the beginning of each month. Kevin Shannon, one of Morrell’s “wine geeks,” whose specialty is California vino, led the class. He covered a lot of ground in one evening, including going over many peculiar wine terms whose meanings are often muddled—legs, mouthfeel, etc.—and made them understandable. And he approached the subject with a generous helping of humor.

One of the most appealing aspects was the informality and lack of pretension. This class broke wine down into something that’s not just enjoyable, but easy to understand. “After all,” Shannon conceded at one point, “it’s just grape juice.”

Now that I know what to look for on the label of a bottle, I’ll be more relaxed once I’m deep into Wine Country. I was afraid of looking like I didn’t know what I was doing—or worse yet, like a tourist—but this class helped me ease that fear. —Amy Plitt

Rustico: Regional Italian Country Cooking with chef Micol Negrin, Institute of Culinary Education
(50 W 23rd St between Broadway and Sixth Ave, 800-522-4610, iceculinary.com. $125 including cookbook by the same name.)

You’d never know by peering into my kitchen or scrutinizing my fridge that cooking is a passion of mine: The last time I spent more than ten minutes preparing a meal was seven months ago. But recent trips to the farmers’ market and a growing desire to eat fresher, better food had me reminiscing about time in the kitchen. It was time to find out if my love for slicing and dicing, browning and brûléeing was a thing of the past or could be recovered.

Perusing the extensive offerings at the Institute of Culinary Education, Micol Negrin’s class seemed like exactly what I needed to revive my love affair with the kitchen. Rather than rehashing basics or starting at the beginning, it promised to drop me into the thick of cooking—and to transport me, gastronomically speaking, to an enchanted land.

After brief introductions, a cursory description of the nine dishes from different Italian regions we’d collectively prepare, and splitting into three groups, the 14 of us who’d signed on donned aprons and scurried about for ingredients. On the agenda of our all-female group of five were beet-filled ravioli with poppy seeds (from scratch, dough and all); prosciutto-wrapped mullet; and cherry tomatoes with celery and Sardinian caviar. Armed with three hours, various levels of kitchen experience, mostly group-friendly demeanors and the guidance of Chef Negrin, we managed to complete our assignment in the nick of time. We stopped only once to gain sustenance from a dish from Latium: light-as-a-feather, savory cheese–stuffed flour-and-water pancakes.

As we sat down to eat our gorgeous hand-spun meal, I reflected on the day: It turned out I knew more about what I was doing than I’d thought. I got completely absorbed in it to an extent I only realized when it was over. I knew soon I’d be making my own ravioli, those pancakes, the incredible salad we’d concocted at home, and would visit that cookbook again and again. —Lee Magill