Fletcher Farm Craft School with Penny Hewitt

Last week on Instagram I learned about a family in Vermont that has many mutual friends of mine. They just recently ran a skills gathering that one of my friends taught at. So one link lead to another link that lead to another link, and I discovered that Penny Hewitt is a basket maker who teaches classes. AND she had a workshop listed at the Fletcher Farm for the Arts and Crafts for a black ash berry basket.

So due to a free weekend and a boyfriend that had a scheduled day of work, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to meet a new basket making friend, finally get to learn some black ash, and get a chance to check out this school I’ve heard about but never attended.

The school was very sweet and had a very nice campus. There was a weaving building where our class was going to take place. Right outside was a beautiful little lake and stream with a table to sit at.

This particular Saturday there was a craft fair going on, which had a lot of great vendors attending. I took advantage of some local maple ice cream and maybe purchased a gorgeous hand carved spoon.

Would you believe that after about 5 years of basket weaving I had never worked with black ash! It was a material that I knew about, but I also knew that I had no access to. I always figured I shouldn’t fall in love with it - well I should have known better because wow, now I get why people love black ash so much.

Penny was the one that hand pounded all the strips of ash, but we took time to split and scrape the pieces that we were using for our basket. Which was absolutely amazing and addicting!

It really made me appreciate every choice and every row that I was adding to create this basket.

The black ash is also so smooth - it has a satin like appearance and feel that is so luxurious.

Penny was a wonderful teacher and it was so nice to meet another maker and teacher working with these local materials. Her pattern and leather work was perfectly simple and beautiful. I knew right away that I wanted to actually put this basket to good use. So the next day I went to a local spot in New Jersey to see if the wineberries were ready. They still have plenty of growing to do but I was able to get a basketful.

My goal now is to make a black ash pack basket and to get a chance to do some log pounding! If I could just use this material I know I’d make many more of this style but unfortunately black ash is at risk of disappearing due to the emerald ash borer so to have a few of these basket in my collection would be good enough for me.

I’m so glad I got to meet and work with Penny. It was a great way to spend a Saturday and I know I’ll be looking out for more basket classes at Fletcher in the future.