Primitive basketry 2: Weaving willow baskets 🧺
Channel: Make It Primitive
Date: 2021-03-01

Winter is the season to harvest willow rods for basketry: No leaves to remove and the wood is very flexible. Ideally, these rods are left to dry for a year before weaving, but they can also be used as fresh "greenwood" (these baskets might get a bit loose as the wood dries out). I made some baskets and stored the rest of my harvest to dry.

As this was my first foray into willow basketry (though I had made some smaller ones before out of burdock, pine needles, and blackberry brambles), I made a couple of beginners mistakes. Here are some of things that I've learned:

- Don't use rods that are too thick as weavers. For my first try (the basket on the left in the group photo), I gathered a lot of rods that turned out to be too stiff.

- The upright staves for the walls should all be of the same strength. Otherwise, the stronger ones will pull outwards more than the others, resulting in a wonky shape.

- Try to leave all the rod ends on the inside of the basket, the results will look much more tidy this way.

- The rim I made in the video is a very simple one - it works, but it's not very grippy. I later went back and gave it the traditional basket rim - unfortunately I lost the footage. Please check out the links below for proper tutorials if you're interested.

The small basket on the right of the trio was my third attempt, where I was able to put some of these learnings into practice.


Recommended resources:

- "Lovely Greens" four-part basketry tutorial for beginners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py_Q612GhAQ

- Hanna Van Aelst's basketry channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjMwg4R5ydaMqjFMZU6pXxw

- How to make bone tools like the one shown in the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyMMyifVfeY


* While willow does work for friction fire, there are better options if you can find them. In my experience, poplar works very well and linden (lime) is also very good. I haven't quite figured out willow yet, sometimes it works and then it just doesn't.

#primitiveskills #basketry