Join master basket weaver Anna Liebmann for three fun and sociable days of Willow Basketry Summer School and create a selection of willow masterpieces. With Annas expert help we will learn all the fundamental techniques of basketmaking, completing a traditional willow shopping basket and then a selection of other small projects over the course. Your completed shopping basket will be based on an extremely time served traditional design, and given due care should be outlasting you to hand down the generations! There will be lots of opportunity to experiment with colour in the sides of the baskets, using different varieties of willows grown for their varied bark colours. Once we’ve completed our shopping baskets we’ll move on to learn a few of Anna’s smaller projects such as platters, woven stars, or nut baskets.
We will work on understanding the structure of baskets, and practise selecting the correct grade of willow for each part of the basket, using Scottish and English grown willows. Techniques taught will include tying the slath, pairing weave, joins, staking up, pull down wale or foot border, 3 rod waling, randing, trac or rod border border, making a handle bow and handle wrapping.
Our Willow Basketry Summer School is suitable for both beginners and improvers. It’s a great place to start if you’ve never woven with willow before, or if you’ve taken one of Anna’s classes with us already this is a brilliant additional skill to add to your basket weaving repertoire.
All tools and materials are included in the Willow Basketry Summer School cost, but you are welcome to bring your own materials to try weaving with
Tea and coffee are provided but participants should bring their own lunch and utensils
All of our classes are suitable for over 16s, younger crafters may be accommodated if accompanied by a participating adult but please contact us before booking
If the workshop you were looking at is fully booked drop us an email and we’ll add you to the waiting list. We will add extra dates to our most popular workshops too, join the mailing list to be the first to know
All of our workshops are held at our accessible workshop at Craft Central, High Street, Dunblane, FK15 0EE.
Deposit payments are available on this course. 50% deposit secures your space, and the remaining balance is due three weeks before the course commences.
If you need to cancel or reschedule your workshop we need at least three weeks notice. Please read our cancellation policy before booking