Weave a basket - PEP BB textile.sand.basket

My ivy and rose trimming basket

Hi all,

A traditional basket from the British Isles is made from Willow or, less commonly, dogwood, hazel, sweet chestnut or oak. We have made several willow baskets for use around the home and have experimented with dogwood which we found much less pliable. The willow has been sourced locally and we are actively growing basketry willow for use in the future. It's only at the sapling stage at the moment but it will likely put on 1m or more growth this year. The dogwood came from the woodland near the house where it grows in abundance. We've also taken some dogwood cuttings which are just showing their first new buds.

I've edited the post to show the remaining stock that we used for making the dogwood basket. I retained the thicker pieces for use as pea sticks. I've also added some shots of the dogwood in the wild and a mock-up shot of it being harvested. I would have harvested a quantity again, to demonstrate how much is needed for a basket, but it is early spring and, as you can see, the dogwood is just coming into leaf. I suspect pruning any at this point would be harmful to the plant as the sap is rising.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can add to verify this. I initially uploaded all the photos of the baskets that I had.

Hi Luke!

I just want to verify that it's you that made the baskets, instead of your partner. Thank you!

Hiya, sorry I missed your response.

We have made a few willow baskets, including one each on the occasion that those photographs were taken. We made them in December and gifted them for Christmas. The complete willow basket in the photo, shown along with a bodkin and the reference guide that we used, is the one that I made. I wouldn't be able to say whether the in-progress basket held up by my partner, Olivia, is hers or mine as they were very similar.

The dogwood basket was a collaboration and we didn't have enough material to make two. As the photos are mine (and taken by me) it is Olivia in the photographs. We foraged and prepared the materials and wove the basket together, however.

I wove a grass basket!
I looked at these videos on YouTube, but I wasn't quite able to follow along, so I did a bit of improvisation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWMTnuc_Xm4&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-ZFtsLuiMo&t=64s

I harvested the same grass that I used for my twine BB and used that same twine in my basket weaving. https://permies.com/wiki/20/105498/pep-textiles/twine-PEP-BB-textile-sand#1266904

I had some of the grass dried and set aside for weaving, but it smelled a bit musty and had gotten brown and shriveled, so, remembering how workable the grass was for twining while still fresh and how well it kept its color and scent, I decided to cut some more grass fresh for this project. The twine made a fairly good handle doubled-back and re-twisted.

I updated the opening post to update the formatting and to reflect that foraging for the plant material is encouraged but not required per a meeting with Mike H. and Paul today.  

Here’s my basket made from willow. It’s about 8” across.

I made a basket in the 2021 SKIP event!  We used freshly harvested willow but since it was summer they had side branches and weren't as much fun to work with...

Went to the river, harvested some willow, made my first basket. It isn't too ugly I think.

Willow basket