Washington Co., Wi – A little bit of really good soap can take you away…..
Registration for the Century Farmhouse 2026 soap making retreats is live. The date has been changed and the spring retreat is now Saturday, March 28, 2026. 
We’ve turned our faces toward spring as the daylight is increasing noticeably and the maple sap is dripping on and off with the fluctuating temperatures.
I took some time in January to trade my usual pace of life for quiet, slower days and I hope you’ve had the chance to do so as well. The first month of the year seems to beckon us to embrace a more muted life, if for just a little while.
The second month sees us take mini-steps toward the light of springtime.
With the thought of living a little more seasonally and gently into 2026, our Soap Making Retreats are back with opportunities to step away from daily life for a few hours, spend some time in nature, learn a new skill, make new friends, and just create.
Click HERE to sign up for the Soap Making Retreats
The first retreat is Saturday, March 28 – soon – and the second is on Saturday, October 24. If the weather patterns this year are similar to the past few years, we may very well be able to take a springtime walk (or snowshoe) and see wildlife moving about in March.
In the autumn, we’ll likely still be walking among the golden maples and oaks with leaves crunching under our boots as we step along the trail.
Every time we take to the trails we seem to see the wildlife that live on those acres. Last year we saw several whitetail bucks – one actually burst across the trail ahead of us – and Sandhill cranes dancing among the dried grasses and cattail canes in the marsh.
Sometimes the resident swans are floating on the creek or pond if the water is open, and there are always the trees, bushes, and other Wisconsin woodland plants that surround us and make us feel we are miles away from everything.
Here’s what you can expect at a Century Farmhouse Soap Making Retreat:
We’ll again hold the Retreats in the Open Wings Art Studio at Cedar Valley Retreat Center in the beautiful Kettle Moraine countryside of southeastern Wisconsin.
The Retreat Center is home to 100 acres of wooded hiking trails that overlook a pond and marsh, and if the weather permits, we’ll walk the trails for about 40 minutes before our soap making day begins.
This is your opportunity to learn the cold process soap making method and create your own batch of luscious, handcrafted soap – you even choose the scent and botanicals.
I will supervise you through the process and help you design your final product. In-person soap making is much more fun than trying to figure it out from an online tutorial. Besides, there are friendly llamas right outside the Studio’s windows too.
