Winter is an ideal time of year to try this as the wood will be dormant, but if you are starting to see buds aready the sap is beginning to flow so you'll have wait till next season!


Basic Hoop (easy peasy this one, as long as you're patient and remember that you have to 'pursuade' the withies to bend which means feeling for the give with your hands/fingers as you flex each one carefully).

Firstly, find some nice, long, thin flexible withies (shoots/branches). You could try Willow, wild Clematis, Hop bine, Hazel, thin Chestnut, Dogwood or any good long flexible garden prunings you might have access to. Whatever you choose should be approx. pencil thickness and about 3' long or thereabouts. Here, I'm using Hazel rods. Take off all the leaves and side shoots. Use only straight pieces and avoid any that have obvious thick side shoots as that's a point of weakness where the withy make snap under pressure.

Now. Work all along your withy, gently bending it between your fingers and thumbs - not so hard that it cracks, but enough to feel it 'give'. Carefully bend it into a 'U' shape like this:

The next bit takes a little care. Put the base of the 'U' shape against your midriff and bend the two ends in gently until you can overlap them, just like a knot:

Now working slowly, gently ease the ends round and in to the hoop so that they're twisting round each other. Do not bend them or they may snap or kink and ruin your hoop. Take your time to get the feel of the wood and you'll get the hang of it as you go. When you finally run out of rod, the hoop should look like this:

You could leave it like this, but I'm going to add in another rod for more body:

As before, you ease the rod into place. When you run out of rod, or the end will no longer stay in place when bent round, trim off the excess pieces with a sloping cut (using secatuers or a good sharp knife) and generally tidy it all up to look like this:

You may add as many withies as you require to get the thickness of hoop and effect you want. You now have a good strong base to weave, wire, tie or glue seasonal decorations onto. They have a lot of other uses too, if you make a lot in decreasing sizes you can tie them in tiers with ribbon and decorate them. Hung horizontally, you could attach small shallow tins to hold tea lights and make a rustic chandelier. Whatever you decide to do though, take care to do it safely and remember to keep wood, foliage and flame well apart.  

Simple woven basket or platter:
Find some good, long thin flexible withies at least a few feet in length and approx. pencil thinkness. I have access to Hazel, so that is what I'm using here:

Cut eight rods from these, make sure they are all at the same diameter and length (in the field, where there are no tape measures I use a two hand span as a rough guide). Trim off any protruding buds or twigs. Now take four of your rods and using a bodkin (basically a small tool with a long thin metal point) or a knife, carefully split them just at the center.

Do take care not to slip and cut yourself, or to break the rods. Ease the split open just enough to insert the other four rods, one rod at a time. Take care not to over split them when you're doing this! I used the knife to ease the gap open gently and put in the first one, after that, it's easier.


The next bit is fiddly& I haven't done any proper weaving in years so this was a bit from memory and a sort of experiment as I went along. For ease of handling I chose to use long, thin stems of wild clematis (also known as Traveller's Joy) to weave the body of the basket. Choose very long thin, whippy stems and trim off all the leaves and tendrils. Handle carefully and go along the entire length of the stem gently easing it over your fingers to make it more flexible. You may hear it 'crack' a bit as you do this, but provided it doesn't actually break you should be ok. You'll find that the bark peels of in places, don't worry - it all adds to the rustic character of the thing (honest! :wink: ). Do be aware that clematis can be a skin irratant and its sap may affect your skin (although during the winter it is less sappy) so do wear gloves if you are concerned.

Now. Take a good, long piece and make a loop. Slip this over four of the split rods on your basket base as shown in the pic.
As you work your way round the rods, always twist the two pieces so that they overlap and bind. Try to work tightly.

Going all the way round make three rows with your weaver and it should end up looking like this:
The next step gets fiddlier still. You now need to split your rods into bunches of two by gently easing and bending them sideways and weaving between them as before. Do this for three more rows - then once more ease the rods apart this time into singles. Weave in between them, always remembering to twist the two stands as you go. Try to remember to make this twist in the same direction each time.
Keeps doing this and your base will eventually begin to look more like a sunray shape with evenly spaced rods all the way around. To join in new weavers, simply tuck the new one in under the end of the old one and carry on (we'll trim all the bits off at the end when we to the tidy up and finish).


To continue the basket I collected wild more clematis (Clematis Vitalba), also known as 'travellers joy' or 'old mans beard', wild hop bines (Humulus lupulus), nettle stems (Urtica dioica), and willow (Salix -, any kind as long as it's not crack willow). Whatever you harvest, either from your garden of the hedgerow, always take a little time and care to remove the side shoots and leaves, tendrils etc, before you use them (and make sure you have permission!).

When I stopped the base had reached this point (see below) but I wanted to carry on weaving out to the ends of the base stakes, so as you can see I inserted two new slightly thinner stakes on either side of them. This is where the basket will begin to be woven vertically to form the sides ('up-setting' is what we always used to call it).

You can see from the phtotgraph that there are various colours representing the different materials being used on the base of the basket - they are, from the center: wild clematis (brown), Kerria stems (green - Kerria japonica), bindweed (golden brown -Convolvulus arvensis), kerria japonica (green), spirea twigs (brown), wild celmatis (brown). And after I'd reached this point I'd got the end of the base stakes and was ready to start shaping the sides.

To raise the sides of the basket each side stake must be carefully bent at a 90% angle without snapping it, and I find willow is the best for this as it's so flexible. The weaver's method is to pierce each rod with a bodkin to assist with the bending right at the point where you want to make the turn (upset). The next bit is horribly fiddly but once you get the sides going it'll be worth it. You must begin weaving, as tight as you can and at the same time pulling in the sides to get that 90% bend. If like me you're right handed, you might find it easier to rest the basket on your knee and bend the stakes away from you as you work (so that you're working on the outside face of the basket). I'm afraid I don't have any pics of this as I can't do two things at once! I used the hop bine for this section as I found its flexibility and length ideal (plus I like the smell of hops). Again, hops too can cause mild skin irritation so use gloves if you need to.

Depending on how easy or hard you find it, you can get a curved side, or a very straight one. But don't worry if it's a bit wonky, just as long as the weave is tight enough anything else just all adds to the charm!

I carried this on for about 2 to 3" with hop, then finished with some wild clematis, ready for fastening off the top. Rims are tricky, and mine's just a very basic, simple one - I'm not sure how well it shows in the pic:


However, once you get the hang of it if you're good, you can do lovely plaits which finish things off beautifully. The finished basket is big enough to hold fruit, or even a selection of home made jams and other gifts. It is a bit rough and rustic and won't last forever but it's remarkably sturdy & I'm rather fond of it as my first attempt after so many years lapsed from practising the skill. Plus, our daughter loves it (so it can't be that bad) and we'll be making many more together and hopefully having a lot of fun in the process.

If you fancy trying this yourself, this is the book I highly recommend getting hold of if you can - How to Make Baskets from Countryside Materials
by Susie Vaughan
ISBN: 0855327553

A quick web-search will throw up loads of basketry courses from all over the country, and this is also a good place to browse for inspiration and information:  http://www.basketassoc.org/index.php

I also found a cornucopia pattern yesterday evening so had a try making it using wild clematis for the stakes and wild hop bine for the weavers - it came out looking like this:

Brilliant fun to make and I found it very quick to do too. It's has loads of potential uses
and even makes an excellent hat as squirt demonstrates.

The instructions to make it came from this site:   http://www.basketmakers.org/topics/seasonal/thanksgiving/frprojcornucopia1.htm

Finally, my aplogies to any experienced basketmakers out there who may find my efforts or desciption beyond the pale - I did my best -sorry!  :wink:

Thats excellent, Thanks very much!

Thanks for that tutorial Chicken - I must give that a go one day, it seems like a very calming activity with lovely results!