Jenny Crisp - Willow: A Guide to Growing and Harvesting

W I L L O WW I L L O WA G U I D E T O G R O W I N G A N D H A R V E S T I N G J E N N Y C R I S P P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y S A R A H W E A L First published in 2018 A Jacqui Small book for White Lion Publishing,

The Old Brewery, 6 Blundell Street London N7 9BH, United Kingdom T (0)20 7700 6700 F (0)20 7700 8066 www.QuartoKnows.com C O N T E N T S Design and layout copyright 2018 Jacqui Small/Quarto Publishing Group Text copyright Jenny Crisp Photography copyright 2018 Jacqui Small/Quarto Publishing Group 6 Willow: ancient and modern24 Work space and tools58 Natural weave The authors moral rights have been asserted. 24 Seat and table 60 Bread tray WORKING WITH 24 Hand tools 64 Fruit basket All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form WILLOW 68 Gathering basket or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, 10 Why I work with willow28 KEY TECHNIQUES mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without 74 Spiral weave prior permission in writing from the publisher. 30 Getting started 31 Handling willow 76 Napkin ring Publisher: Jacqui Small 12 Growing for making 80 Bird feeder Design and Art Direction: Rachel Cross 12 Understanding willow 31 Your hands Editor: Sian Parkhouse 31 Creating the form 84 Egg basket Photographer: Sarah Weal 14 Choosing your site 88 Garlic holder Stylist: Caroline Davis 15 Planting your willow bed 32 Templates Production: Maeve Healy 32 Cutting slypes 92 Round weave The author has made every attempt to draw attention to safety 16 Harvesting willow 32 Weaving processes precautions, but it is the readers responsibility to ensure safety 34 Natural template 94 Wreath practices while carrying out techniques outlined in this book. 16 Cutting 98 Lampshade 16 Sorting 35 Square template ISBN: 978-1-911127-71-0 102 Cloche 18 Drying and storing 36 Round template 108 Coracle seat A catalogue record for this book is available from 37 Start weave 114 Waste-paper bin the British Library. 19 Willow categories 38 Three-rod wale 39 English rand 2020 2019 2018 120 Square weave 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 20 Preparing for weaving 40 Five-pair Border 122 Trivet Printed in China 20 Soaking 126 Breakfast tray 20 Mellowing 42 PROJECTS 132 Jardinire A note on measurements: 22 Maintaining flexibility 44 Flat weave 136 Lunch bag Dimensions and measurements are given in 22 Sorting soaked material 46 Star metric and Imperial.

Please follow one system 140 Laundry basket consistently, and do not combine the two. 50 Fish 54 Screen 144 Resources144 Acknowledgments Quarto is the authority on a wide range of topics. Quarto educates, entertains and enriches the lives of our readers enthusiasts and lovers of hands-on living. www.QuartoKnows.com W I L L OW : A N C I E N T A N D M O D E R N Basket making is one of the oldest crafts known to man. particular quality, which, in turn, dictates how they are Currently, we can date some found pieces as far back as used. We havent yet been able to invent a machine that Mesolithic times.

For thousands of years, every community can make a basket, because we cannot standardize what across the world has woven their indigenous materials into mother nature produces. Fortunately, we cannot force dwellings, means of transportation, functional objects for willow to grow into a uniform material that works with the use in the home and garden and even into clothing and precise needs of mechanization. For this reason, willow jewellery. Grasses were woven into shoes, cloaks or carpets, weaving is a craft that resists the forces and developments while branches of small trees were woven into boxes, boats of modern life. The tools and workshops in the basket or houses. The knowledge and understanding of these making world today have changed little over time if materials would have created an unquestionable symbiosis we could walk into a basket makers workshop in 16th with nature and the environment.

Survival depended on century London, we would find very little difference in this deep-rooted knowledge. the method of production from the processes I use in my Very little changed until the 20th century. In most workshop today. communities, rural and urban, there would have been an In the 21st century we are trying to reconnect with area of land close by that was used to grow willow. Really, nature by choice, and not by necessity. We have moved it wasnt until the 1960s, with the explosion of man-made from wanting to keep nature out of our daily lives to materials and cheap international transportation, that the seeking to include it.

Our mechanized and digital lives growing of willow and the basket making industry came have become so separated from our surroundings that under threat. The links between growing, harvesting and some people seek a personal dialogue with nature and making with willow would until then have been common their environment in one way or another. Many of us to many people, but it took only one generation for us to aspire to question and to re-engage with a knowledge lose these connections. This way of life was no longer and understanding of our materials, with the hope that familiar or instinctive; we had become separate from it. we can tap into an ancient and cultural memory that Today, little has changed in the processes of once existed. A hero of mine, the environmental sculptor cultivating and manufacturing objects in willow.

Unlike Andy Goldsworthy, stands as a testament to this. He other crafts, such as weaving fabric, potting, woodworking gathers and reorders nature, with very few tools, to create and blacksmithing, basket making has escaped the breathtaking natural compositions that he hopes reminds developments of the industrial revolution. us of this lost connection. There are many types of willow suitable for basket making and they grow into as many different dimensions, A variety of basket-making willows, cut in January, sorted densities, colours and textures. They each have their own and drying naturally in the sunshine (opposite). W I L L O W : A N C I E N T A N D M O D E R N W I L L O W : A N C I E N T A N D M O D E R N W O R K I N GW I T H W I L L O WT H E R E A R E M A N Y , M A N Y D I F F E R E N T W A Y S O F W E A V I N GA B A S K E T W I T H W I L L O W . W O R L D W I D E T H E R E A R E A SM A N Y V A R I A T I O N S O F T E C H N I Q U E S A S T H E R E A R E T Y P E S O FW I L L O W .

O V E R T H E C E N T U R I E S D I F F E R E N T C U L T U R E S H A V EB E E N I N C R E D I B L Y I N G E N I O U S I N T H E W A Y S I N W H I C H T H E YH A V E I N T E R P R E T E D T H I S R E M A R K A B L E M A T E R I A LT O M A K E T H E I R B A S K E T S .

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