Chicken Willow Weaving Workshop
Sunday 29th September 2019 | 10am until 4pm
Have you ever wanted to make a beautiful focal point in your garden? Discover the pleasures of working with willow and create a stunning structure and sculpture at this one day workshop.
Enjoy a unique and satisfying experience learning to work with locally sourced willow in the beautiful surroundings of Hanwell Wine Estate. Chris, your tutor, will take you through a journey teaching you the basics of making sculpture from English willow. She will share with you her years of experience and knowledge of tools and materials to use. Chris exceptional experience will guide you through, so by the end of the day you will have learnt different weaving techniques using a frame to create a bird feeder and a random weave to make a chicken, ready to take pride of place in your garden. Both techniques will be useful for any future work with willow and give you useful experience of the material.
This workshop is suitable for both complete novices and people with experience of using willow. All materials and tools are provided along with refreshments throughout the day and a two-course handmade lunch served with a glass of wine.
By the end of the day you will have made one bird feeder and a life size Chicken to take home
We can’t teach you to make a basket in a day, but you can take home a Chicken ! A relaxing opportunity to get away from it all and do something different in the beautiful country side.
A selection of the delicious homemade food served on recent workshops!
“The beauty of this once commonplace craft, is now an increasingly rare craft”
Outline of the day
9.50am Light refreshments and settle in
10:00am Welcome and met your tutor Chris
10:15am Introduction on the history of willow
Get hands on with willow and make your bird feeder
Refreshment break with snack
Start preparation for your Chicken sculpture
12:30pm Lunch is served – 2 course homemade lunch served with a glass of wine from the vineyard
Continue where you left off
Refreshment break with snack
16:00pm Home time, ready to take your completed bird feeder and Chicken home to show your family and friends
To ensure the quality of your personal experience, group size will be limited to 8.
For more information about this event or other Rural Antics workshops, contact Hanwell Wine Estate, events@ruralantics.co.uk or 01949 81393.
For frequently asked questions about our workshops visit our FAQ page – click here
Want to know what happened at our Willow Weave Workshop held in January 2018, click here to read our blog.
About Chris Baxter your tutor
Chris has an exceptional talent and skill as a basket maker. Expressing her art genes originally through Fine Art she then turned to working with willow. Tutored by Jane Jennifer in Diss on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, her teachings has come from a confirmed heritage that began over 100 years ago starting with Ronnie Woods family. A member of the Basketmakers’ Association she shares their aim “to promote the knowledge basketry, chairseating and allied crafts…”
Working locally she produces bespoke commission pieces and regularly teaches willow workshops. Working in willow that is harvested in the UK (Nottinghamshire and Somerset)
Giving as a Gift?
If you would like to buy this as a gift for someone, please ensure when you place your order add in the comments box -‘gift voucher with the recipients name’. We will then email you a home-print voucher with a description of the workshop and date. Gift vouchers are fully flexible and if your recipient is not available or does not want to do this workshop we will happily move them to another date or different workshop of the same or lower price.
