Willow Weaving

Day 38 - Willow Weaving

This is what my bath has looked like for the last few days..........

I've been soaking willow to make it pliable enough for today's craft.  Although our school has often used willow to make various structures, I personally have never undertaken a large project. By mid-morning I should know whether it's going to work for me or not! At this point I'd like to say a personal thank you to school for donating the willow for this project.

I've decided to make a large cross to form part of the church's Easter flower display.  Of course I hope the church will be able to use this willow weaving for other future displays as well - which is why I'm not making a rabbit! The other reason being I haven't a clue how I'd even begin to weave a rabbit.  For a cross I thought I'd start by making two rectangular frames - one short, one long - and tying them together to form a cross.  This in itself was harder than I thought it'd be. 

My general tactic was to bend the willow around the frame in large zig zags, trying to wrap it over and under itself as well. By mid-morning I was seriously beginning to doubt whether this was ever going to work.  The willow wouldn't stay put, I couldn't figure out how to tie the ends in to anything and it was extremely difficult trying to stay to the cross shape.   In fact I later gave up trying to keep the bottom of the cross frame together and decided to concentrate on weaving the top part.  

Well, I persevered. I decided to let the willow bend where it was most happy bending and I left some of the ends sticking out, figuring I would simply snip them off later.  Eventually I began to see progress and the top of the cross began to come together.  

Happier now I moved on to tackle the bottom of the cross.  I did find that the more weaving there is the easier it becomes as there are more points to secure and wrap the willow.  





As I've said the original shape didn't really work out and I spent hours twisting, bending, snipping, weaving and wrapping more and more strips of willow around the cross until I was entirely happy with the shape from all sides.  As a last thought I decided to wrap about eight willow strips in a hoop around the neck of the cross and these came  together nicely on the front. What an effort! Here is the finished cross taken in our garden..

Looking back I'm not sure that the willow had soaked for long enough however the project had to be done today as the church would need it tomorrow.   Some of the willow snapped as I bent it, but more didn't than did.

It was also great exercise as I lost count of the number of times I raced up the stairs to get another two strips of willow from the bath tub.  The willow dries out so quickly that I never got more than three pieces out at a time.

2 days to go!!!!

Update: Here are some photos of the willow crosses decorated for Easter....

As well as the large willow cross I made these quick small willow crosses which look lovely as a 'hill far away'.

Thank you to the flower arrangers at the church for incorporating them in such a beautiful way.