A week on Rope Coils…. Continuing to work on baskets for Christmas orders and having a couple of Rope Coils on order I decided to spend the rest of the week working on others for stock. Still love making this robust, chunky, arty style of basket. Not quite sure where the technique itself originates. The weave I was first shown was a 5 rod wale, in front of 3 behind 2 and I made a small round bowl shaped basket, nowadays I tend to play around with the weave and try all sorts of waling, pairing and packing combinations. Back in 2004/5 I was in B.C Canada running courses and had also taught some ..read more

Traditional Fruit and Vegetable Baskets in White Willow Spent a couple of days making Covent Garden Sieves this week.  This traditional British basket was taught to me back in 1986 by my Master Terry Bensley who made them along with many other traditional baskets all of his working life.  They were used on Covent Garden Market for fruit and vegetables and made by many individuals and basket making firms all over the country and then sent to London. The post cards show porters on the market carrying them on their heads, the bottoms were slightly domed which made them very strong and e ..read more

                            At last a blog!  We have been without internet for three months and are now back to normal (thank you to Orange for a speedy resolution to this problem!!) Now working on stock baskets and orders. As usual at this time of year we have been making lots of log baskets.  Open wood fires and wood burners are widely used in this part of France as cheap chestnut and oak is readily available for burning.  We had to clear some woodland to plant our willow bed and I estimate we have anot ..read more

  Very pleased with these large garden baskets which I made last week, three for the U.S and three for stock (two sold already). I used 5 different willows in them, Petite Grisette, Nigricians, Faucille, Belge Rouge and Dickie Meadows. The willows were all at their best and worked perfectly, despite being harder to make than they used to be they were a pleasure to make. I remember a conversation with David Drew a few years back and he said ‘there are very few days of the year when everything is just right for basket making ‘.  I remember being puzzled at the time because I worked f ..read more

Great day at this renowned and very well attended basketry festival in the Perigord Poupre. Issigeac is a bastide town in the Dordogne and hosts the Foire Paniers Vannerie every year on the third Sunday of July. We have attended every year since living in France and this year there were around 40 basketmakers from all over France. Lots of demonstrations and many makers demonstrating the Perigourdin/Bouyricou which has strong associations with this region. We had a successful day both selling and on a personal level, bumping into some old friends, Paddy and Ursula,  from our U.K. craft ci ..read more

  Our second order for Cindy Daniel from Shed, Healdsburg, California. Cindy Daniel and Doug Lipton have a wonderful array of ethically sourced artisan products for sale from their website www.healdsburgshed.com From kitchen to garden, home ware to foraging there is something for everyone.The website is beautifully put together, very informative and with mouth watering images of the food they and their suppliers  produce locally. They have a cafe/restaurant on site which looks scrumptious and also offer workshops, talks and themed suppers, We have really enjoyed making baskets for th ..read more

Just completed this order for Seiichiro and Asako Ito of Kagoamidori in Tokyo, Japan.  We are looking forward to the visit of Asako later this month.  Asako is coming over for the Foire Paniers Vannerie at Issigeac on 16 July and coming on to our house overnight on the 18th to get a flavour of how we work to share with their customers in Japan.   I have been an admirer of Japanese baskets, pots and art for many years and its an honour to be sending some of my own work out to this part of the world.   Have a look at their website, they have baskets from all over the world an ..read more

Very pleased to be chosen by the Basket Makers Association for their latest newsletter in the Meet the Maker feature.  As a taster below are the first and last questions.  The newsletter has been revamped of late and has some interesting new features for basket makers, chair re-seaters and any one interested in crafts. If you are not a member its well worth joining for the quarterly newsletter. http://basketmakersassociation.org.uk/ Meet the Maker Questions – Adrian Charlton When did you start making baskets and how did Norfolk Basket Company start? I started making baskets in 1985 ..read more

Spent a productive 4 days in Bouxurulles, Vosges, France. Great to meet up with some old basketmaking friends and make some new contacts with students. Taught an Asparagus basket on day one using the English stake up method and ‘blunt, square corners’. Eight very capable French students. Vegetable gatherer on day two with the English oval bottom. Both baskets were slewed so it gave my French students a technique to try that they don’t seem to use here quite so much as we do back in Blighty. Saturday morning was spent teaching a ‘Plateau Catalan’ with some fitching to secure the rods to the ..read more

Perfect day for stripping some sticks yesterday, blue sky, gentle breeze and although it’s maybe a week or two early I was eager to strip our first white from the beds at Chez Neymard. Didn’t strip as easily as usual but still lovely to do and finished up with some beautiful sticks for square work or bye-stakes for fitched baskets, like these small herring crans. These were 2 year old Jagiellonka and Viminalis willows.  It’s fairly labour intensive but I would urge anyone who grows willows to strip a few for sticks for yourself. Two year old sticks can be expensive, especially white ..read more