Making A Basket Base

Making A Basket Base

If you ever wondered why most round baskets have a little square in the middle, now you will see why.  This close up video shows the very first stages of making a basket base, one of the most fiddliest bits of the basket weaving days here at Wild Harvest School.  

The willow in the video is 3ft long, buff willow (without the bark on).  It has been soaked for one and a half hours and mellowed for one and a half hours.  See our other blog; Harvesting and Preparing Willow For Weaving to learn about soaking and mellowing your willow.

 

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Be More Self-Sufficient With Di Hammill Page

Di has been running Wild Harvest School for almost two decades...

Beginning with running foraging walks for the Forestry Commision and National Parks, she started teaching basket weaving and rag rugging from the kitchen table. Being a single mum with three small children she ran walks and courses and sold hand-made crafts when she could, taking the children to the woods with her to work. Having had an unusual upbringing herself, being raised by her soldier grandfather and hippy scientist father; self-reliance was taught from an early age.

After leaving academia to raise her own children alone and off-grid ...

in a similar basic lifestyle to the one the men raised her in... she gave up everything to move into a caravan on the North Yorkshire Moors where they had no loo or electric. They lived from what was around them for nearly three years, making and gathering much of what they needed. Digging up cow dung for fires, or chopping wood and weaving baskets or making rag-rugs, with a toddler in a sling. Today Wild Harvest School has been operating across two farm venues, near York, and is proud to have trained tutors covering much of the U.K. We teach adults via fun group activities but also run day courses, walks and retreats

If you can't get here for a course...

you can join Di online in one of her e-books or online courses. Di is passionate about keeping these skills accessible and affordable.

IN FACT... click below to get her book for just £5.99 below... ($7)

Get 237 Pages of Self-Reliance Skills for just £5.99!