The road ahead in the first days of 2021…
Hello 2021… the end of a difficult 2020 has given me time to reflect and I have missed a few things.
- Walking outside wrapped in nature & its elements.
- Cultivating willow & cut flowers.
- Weaving baskets to work with nature’s beauty, learn new skills & enjoy mindful moments.
2020 brought us both time together as a family and time apart. Town Council work has been busier than ever. My business shut down during Covid-19 but has pivoted into a new artistic direction with a focus on workshops & a local Guild to share the studio space.
So here on the blog I am going back to where I began back in 2018. One simple thing a week I can share about weaving baskets or farming willow & flowers. There is a certain peace that comes from a little time each week devoted to something you are passionate about- whether it is hard work or relaxation. It might the satisfaction after working in the hot sun or a cold evening that the seeds or cuttings you planted will grow into something wonderful. It might be the inner peace after hours lost in weaving patterns as you craft willow sticks into a new creation.
What is it that you love to do but have maybe lost track of in 2020 like me? What brings you a little moment of peace in your week? Challenges will continue into this new year, so now more than ever we need to pay attention to what builds our resilience. I am ready for a fresh start in 2021…want to join me?
Our 3-hour drive from Kingston to Newmarket turned into 6.5 hours due to a highway closure and jam that was hours long because of it. While my husband had to stay at the wheel, I was able to make lemonade out of lemons by settling into a weaving an Ethernet wire basket. Unfortunately willow weaving is not so portable, but I always have some sewing or wire weaving with me for these long drives. Using the 4 standard wire colours of CAT 5 & CAT 6 wire, I untwisted the CAT 5 to start the base weave and then graduated to the thicker wire as the spacing got bigger.
This week’s focus for my 
Lene taught me how to do the zigzag weave & it paired well with some double French randing in 2 colours.
It is a large basket, so I designed 2 handles by using 6 of the stakes on each side and then modifying a 4-behind-2 border to work around the handles. I can’t really share the steps of how I altered the border to accommodate the handles because it was very much just a feel for keeping the pattern flowing as I went!
Due to weather, we had to postpone Clarksburg has h”ART until March 23, so my weekend was free to explore a new weave and new potential half-day workshop to offer. It is the first project I have tried from Jenny Crisp’s new book Willow: A Guide to Growing and Harvesting – Plus 20 Beautiful Woven Projects (2018) and has a marvelous weaving rhythm to it once you get the hang of the pattern. I did use 3 resources in total to learn this weave, so I recommend you take an in-person workshop to learn it if you can. After that, you can keep creating with ease! My resources toolbox:
While the tradition is to plant cutting in the the Spring, my environmental background lead me to research that planted willow cuttings in the fall in order to restore Riparian banks along rivers and ponds. So risking only the time it took to gather heirloom cuttings from road allowances all over the township, we planted hundreds in the late fall just before the ground froze. I had leftovers that were in buckets of water in the garage with little natural light and guess what happened! They rooted wildly in the water buckets over the weeks left alone there.
So I went to the dollar stores for galvanized metal buckets in order to find affordable ways in which to pot these cuttings and let them grow all over the house where ever there is a a window. I wanted small pots so they could sit on the window sills and look nice in the house. Maybe one day we will build a greenhouse. I have used soil for seedlings and no chemicals because willow has its own growth hormone.
