Willow basket weaving
- Thread starter SaraR
- Start date
Yeah, you mainly get willow weaving in Skåne. Always find it interesting how different regions used different materials, at a time when they could be shipped around the country if not found locally.
Simply pull the brambles through several layers of canvas offcuts (wear gloves as well just in case...)
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Bramble is a bit weaker than willow? Used for ’lighter use’ objects?
Yes, they found remains of seven fishing traps in Sweden, in the Baltic, just outside an old river mouth.
But the surviving sticks were willow?
The estimated age is somewhere around 9000 years.
Yes, they found remains of seven fishing traps in Sweden, in the Baltic, just outside an old river mouth.
But the surviving sticks were willow?
The estimated age is somewhere around 9000 years.
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Dreadhead
Bushcrafter through and through
I have bramble weavers on willow frame baskets where it is the willow that has broken... and several baskets where the willow has contracted woodworm and the bramble is unaffected
Funny you should say that; one of the baskets a friend made and gave me succumbed to woodworm too. I reckon it's one reason that the peeled and boiled rods became so popular. The woodworm can't get a grip or hide out in the bark to get a start.
M
Oooops, sorry, cross posted with Mr Fenna !
That's a two pronged answer really.
Anything you make from green materials will shrink in width, will slacken. Doesn't mean it's not sound that it's not going to work depending on the material (palm leaf mats come to mind) just that it won't be 'tight'.
If you dry your material it'll lose not just the water but everything shrinks and it won't ever swell up the same again. It will swell, but just never to the same level.
If you soak your dried material to make it flexible again, and use that to weave something, then when it dries it won't shrink and slacken.
Hedgerow baskets are often woven on green materials. You can later thread through more bramble/ivy/honeysuckle/clematis/whatever to fill in too wide spacing though.
That's a two pronged answer really.
Anything you make from green materials will shrink in width, will slacken. Doesn't mean it's not sound that it's not going to work depending on the material (palm leaf mats come to mind) just that it won't be 'tight'.
If you dry your material it'll lose not just the water but everything shrinks and it won't ever swell up the same again. It will swell, but just never to the same level.
If you soak your dried material to make it flexible again, and use that to weave something, then when it dries it won't shrink and slacken.
Hedgerow baskets are often woven on green materials. You can later thread through more bramble/ivy/honeysuckle/clematis/whatever to fill in too wide spacing though.
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I am being unusually stupid now, but I recall that brambles do not have a circular crosscut?
Does that matter?
The fruit bowl I made in pre history, I weaved in ’twigs’ from an ornamental garden bush with brightly coloured bark.
Some of the willow I debarked.
That piece is gone.
Once I did that course I went onto silver smithing.
Does that matter?
The fruit bowl I made in pre history, I weaved in ’twigs’ from an ornamental garden bush with brightly coloured bark.
Some of the willow I debarked.
That piece is gone.
Once I did that course I went onto silver smithing.
Thanks! I found the style a bit harder for making it nice and even, but it was great to learn a new technique and it was good practice for the cyntell course in May.
Thanks! I really struggled with it kinking all the time, and of course the first thing I saw today was an accidental over-two, under-two weave. But it is very sturdy and quite straightforward once you got going. I also like how you can get length-wise stripes.I like that
Lovely colours and the weave looks neat and sound too.
M
And if you make it with fresh material you can just weave in some more when it has dried up and shrunk a bit.
I thought it was a 'design feature' at the handle
I do like the hoop type baskets; so very useful for fruits and veggies, etc.,
M
I do like the hoop type baskets; so very useful for fruits and veggies, etc.,
M
Yeah, I like the look of the pattern too, the concentric half circles on the sides and the stripes on the ends.
