Blue Mountain Baskets
Basketmaking & Growing Willow in the Blue Mountains, Ontario, Canada
Category: Blog (page 3 of 8)
This Saturday I was back at the Branch Ranch to learn how to make willow ornaments! what a fun busy day learning from Jill & Jackie how to make all of these willow decorations! I found random weaving more difficult than following a pattern! I’d like to add little LED lights to some of these and make a herd of reindeer & add some antlers.
I finally got to take a workshop at the Branch Ranch with Jill and Jackie! They have designed this beautiful sculpture that supports peonies in a garden but also looks fantastic in a winter urn! It was a half-day workshop and we created these very large crowns.
The local museum curator found me some rolls of reed at a nearby Value Village, so this is my first attempt using them. I do prefer willow & dogwood to this floppy type of material but it is nice that you can dye it and it needs only 20 minutes of soaking to be ready to use. My mom & I dyed it with some leftover fabric dyes she had because my goal was to create a teaching aid. For my upcoming workshop, I would like to show participants the different types of weaving patterns that are possible.
- Double row of 3-rod waling in 3 colours
- Japanese weaving in just green single reeds
- French randing in 3 colours (pairs of each colour)
- Chase randing in 2 colours
- Double row of 3-rod waling in 3 colours
- Japanese weaving using double reeds (green & tea coloured)
- Twining in 2 colours
- Single row of 3-rod waling in 3 colours
- Chase randing in 2 colours
- Twining in 2 colours
Layers of patterns. See key.
I was in the Clarksburg Artisan Market on the Thanksgiving Weekend. For this I added to my inventory a harvesting basket for the them of the weekend. It turned out well following Jon Ridgeon’s book, and I like the creative handles I made from the overlapping fresh heritage willow I used to make the frame. They are really comfortable and yet artistic. I learned to split the ribs from fresh willow too from Jon’s book.
See my favourite moment at the Artisan Market post too!
Those are our own heritage apples- different varieties harvested from our 13 trees.
At our local Beaver Valley Fall Fair, I entered three categories:
A garden ornament made of sticks and stones. I used fresh cut local heritage willow to weave the sphere and then added a variety of stones that come out of my digging up here inside the sphere. I sprayed clear coat on the rocks to bring out their beautiful colours like they look when they are wet.
Something useful from something useless. I entered a couple of my baskets made from Ethernet wire cut-off ends.
A craft made from wood not otherwise in another category. So I entered a Dogwood basket!
Completed 2018 Goal: A Basket per Week…
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- Week 52
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- Week 51
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- Week 50
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- Week 49
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- Week 48
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- Week 47
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- Week 46
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- Week 45
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- Week 44
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- Week 40
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- Week 36
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- Week 27
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- Week 26
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- Week 24
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- Week 23
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- Week 22
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- Week 21
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- Week 19
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- Week 17
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- Week 16
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- Week 15
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- Week 14
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- Week 13
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- Week 12
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- Week 11
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- Week 10
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- Week 9
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- Week 8
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- Week 7
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- Week 6
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- Week 5
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- Week 4
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- Week 3
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- Week 2
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- Week 1
Cats in Baskets
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- Shady squishes in at Mom and Dad’s.
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- In a basket boat
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- Toulouse in Dogwood Basket
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- Marie “helps” with stakes.
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- Marie in cat basket
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- Toulouse tries different approach
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- Magnus takes over shopping basket
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- Dogwood & vine cat basket
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- Week 5
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- Magnus in cat basket
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