Ribbed Willow Baskets at Roots

A few weeks ago I traveled to the Roots School in Vermont to teach a rib style willow basket class. Normally I write about classes I take, but this class that I taught felt worth blogging about.

I had a huge group of 11 students. Not all of them are pictured below but these two pictures are a beautiful representation of what was made during this really fun weekend.

Everyone did an excellent job and it was nice to teach this group particularly because every student was interested in doing more willow basket work or knew of some wild willow spots they could take advantage of. Rib style is perfectly suited to foragers. Baskets can be set up and worked on periodically as materials become available or as older material shrinks, if it was woven fresh.

I had a few of the students who had experience making baskets and some that had never made a basket before. In my opinion rib style is a great start for anyone learning, and then perfecting this style is what comes to more advanced weavers.

As you can see it was a great group! We all had lots of fun and it was great to see a couple of people have those “light bulb” moments. You just know that those moments will lead to greater discoveries in their own projects down the road. I love working with people that have good hand skills and are “makers” in their own way, they have great sense of transferring visual examples to their hands. Students that aren’t afraid to try something or work out a process with minimal guidance. It’s one of the main reasons why I love teaching at this school; most students come with the approach to do all on their own and really learn the skills being taught.

It was a nice relaxed class so I got some time to snap some great pictures. Thanks to the fact that I brought some beautiful Canadian willow with me, and Sarah contributed her own wild and cultivated willow we had a large array of colors to play with. The beautiful thing about rib baskets is that even though everyone started with almost the same set of hoops, all the baskets were individual and different.

One of the students in the class asked me about willow tension trays or Catalan platters. Since some of the students were coming close to the end of their baskets I decided to show them how to make these as well. A few students got to give it a try and this beauty pictured above I left for Sarah and Brad to use.

If you are unfamiliar with the Roots School, check them out! I first attended a few classes here before teaching. If you look back into my blog you’ll see the amazing experiences I’ve had at this extremely special school.

I was also so excited when Brad offered to take some video of our class. He put together a quick but gorgeous video (take a look below) of all the amazing work accomplished during this weekend. I’m so honored to teach at Roots and I hope to continue to do so for many years to come!