Weaving Wild

This will be a small, supportive group offering time to step away from everyday pressures, work with your hands and connect with the natural world through craft.

Taking place through October and November, this course will follow the changing season and explore natural materials through basketry. When the weather allows, we’ll spend time outdoors, paying attention to the landscape around us and noticing the seasonal shift as autumn moves towards winter.

Sessions may include:

• Learning and developing basketry techniques such as twining, coiling and frame basketry
• Exploring how different weaving techniques can be adapted to a range of natural materials
• Understanding the qualities of different plant fibres and what makes them suitable for different kinds of weaving
• Spending time outdoors when we can, noticing the changing season and the plants growing around us
• Building the skills and confidence to recognise how locally available plants might be prepared and used in your own weaving

The emphasis is on exploration, enjoyment and the process of making rather than perfection. No previous experience is needed.

Places are limited and offered with care, so that those who will benefit most have the opportunity to take part.

Sessions are free, ensuring that cost is not a barrier to participation, but donations towards costs are very welcome, so please pay what you can.

Spaces are limited, if you have taken part in the course twice or more we kindly ask you allow newcomers to the course to take priority.

About Jeanette Gray

Jeanette Gray is a basketmaker and facilitator originally from Scotland and now based in Machynlleth, Mid Wales. She has been weaving since 2012 and completed a two-year professional training in basketry at City Lit in London.

Her practice centres on wild and locally gathered materials, exploring the relationships between making, landscape, heritage and place. She is particularly interested in living traditions: how skills and knowledge are carried forward, adapted and given new meaning rather than simply preserved.

Through her own making and community work, Jeanette uses basketry as a practical way to engage with the plants and places around us, and to explore wider questions about belonging, land and our relationship with the natural world.