Materials and experimentation
Core willow techniques have been covered in the bases and baskets pages. These are other techniques, experiments with materials with no known outcome and dying materials.
Copper flashing plaited basket
I made this at Hereford College of Arts 21st Century Makers class. It does have a handle but the rivets were so tight that the teacher ended up doing it, so this photos represents my own work and I just love it. It is now my tool basket for my basket making tools. I've never worked with copper before and have never made a plaited basket. It took me 6 weeks to do as I only had one shot a the material, so planned and fretted before every cut but it mercifully went to plan.
Soft rush base
When out taking some photos in a wood for the Design unit, I picked some soft rush and sat and practiced my pairing weave to make a base. It looked lovely, so glossy. However, obviously as it shrunk it dried out and loosened up. I've still got it on a shelf as I don't have the heart to throw it out yet. Maybe at the end of the course.
Coiling
We experimented as a class learning to make a coiled basket base. I decided to boldly strike out straight off the cuff with floristry wire (in preparation for electrical cable wire later on). This technique used fat string as a core, wrapped with green silk, blanket stitched together with gold floristry wire.
Not sure if I have the patience for coiled baskets but I might take material with me to our campsite holiday in the summer instead of sitting around scrolling on my phone. Feel like it would be a good substitute.
Raffia mariposa
This is a lovely south east Asian technique and took me a while to get the hang off as we learnt it last thing on on the second day. It involves wrapping and sewing the raffia (in red) over a core of raffia that makes a tail (in natural). Once we'd go off the first few turns at the start the pattern started emerging and was easier to get the rhythm.
Experimental coiling
This ended up taking up most of my time in the class as I was determined to build it up. This is willow ends stitched together using electrical cable stripped out from the plastic casing. It's not using a blanket stitch as that didn't work with the materials but still loops the one row to another. It worked well and I liked the effect but it was hard going on the hands bending the willow round and pushing the wire through.
Dying
We experimented as a class with dying. The samples in the photo were using Dylon hand dyes. Some of the samples used salt as instructed with the packet and some didn't. The salt free samples in the photo are the paler colours.We also experimented with natural dyes but these either didn't take or were very subtle colour changes. The willow didn't take any of the Dylon up and Gill explained that you need to use a much stronger and more expensive dye to colour willow.