At Lakeshore Willows with Ane Lyngsgaard

This last weekend I was extremely lucky to attend a three day class at Lakeshore Willows with Ane Lyngsgaard, a basket maker from Denmark. She was visiting as a guest teacher and she showed us how to make some of her famous purse baskets.

The first of the two that I decided to work on was an oval base with willow bark sides, and lid with fancy closures and leather straps. At the end of the first day I knew I wanted to attempt the second style which is a soft diamond shape with sides that lift up (pictured below).

The construction of this basket was genius! A french base in the shape of a leaf that was tied up to make the sides lift and the whole basket rock. It was the end of the class and all the smaller willow was accounted for so my choice was to try and see if this variety called Rubykins would work for a zigzag. It is not known as an easy variety to use so it was leftover. To my delight it was beyond wonderful to use and it created a beautiful ombre effect on the sides of the basket.

I could have continued further and created a top and closures with a strap on the side making this a purse but I didn’t have enough time and I wanted to get the first basket I started completed. I will use this one as a reference and possibly complete another like it one day.

I took a picture of the corner to remind myself of how it was executed. It was very similar to the same way that square work border is done. Ane truly shows her mastery of willow baskets with these amazing shapes.

The first basket that I started had what Ane called a German Oval Base, which I have never done before. I have seen other weavers use this technique and it makes the construction of the oval base much easier and more beautiful.

Below is a picture of the completed basket as it should be. The lid was made and attached with willow hinges. The wood closure was a piece of driftwood that Ane found on the shore of Lake Erie which is across the street from where Lene’s farm is.

I knew I wanted to try and weave the willow bark middle with black willow bark. I thought it would go perfectly with the hand stained leather straps and closures that we were taught to prepare. So when I returned home on Monday I put some of my willow bark stash into a chemical mixture of Iron. It instantly turned the bark black and I then cut it into strips and random wove it around the middle stakes.

The result was just stunning! I’m so glad I got the chance to work with Ane and I really hope to work with her again one day in the future. She was a wonderful teacher and I am so grateful to her for sharing these techniques she developed.