Willow Basketmaking Classes

Dates: Basketry classes are offered throughout the year, but we offer more classes during winter months. Jump to class schedule.
Class size: Classes are 2-10 people. Typically we have an instructor-to-student ratio of 1:5 to ensure that students receive enough of hands-on instruction through the weaving process.
Ages: 16+. Students age 12-16 are welcome to enroll with an adult.
Tuition: Sliding scale: $150–250, including all materials. Scholarships are available.

Groundwork offers basketry classes for all skill levels! Join us to weave your first basket, master more advanced basketry techniques, or take on an ambitious project to weave the pack basket of your dreams!

At Groundwork, we see willow basketry as a foundational practice of belonging in Colorado. Creating good willow for weaving is a multi-year process, requiring tending willow patches through the seasons and building a relationship with the plants we harvest from. Willow is a plant that responds well to human disturbance: the plants grow stronger and spread more when cut every year for baskets. When willow patches are neglected, they become overgrown, branchy thickets. We harvest all our willow locally, and our baskets represent a positive, mutually-beneficial relationship between people and willow. To us, willow basketry is part of a vision for a healthy cultural relationship with the land in Colorado.

Jump to Class Schedule

Class Offerings

Intro to Willow Basketry

Level: Beginner (No experience needed)
Class Length: 6 hours (9am to 4pm with a 1-hour lunch break)

Join us for your first exploration of willow basket weaving! This class covers the foundations of European-style willow weaving. You’ll learn to weave a small, round basket using the simplest weaving techniques. You’ll learn to create a sturdy base, add sides to the basket, and finish your basket with a strong border. At the end of the class, you’ll have all the skills to weave your own baskets and begin to explore more advanced willow weaving techniques.

Skills: Willow harvesting and tending, preparing willow for weaving, simple bases, simple weaves, and simple borders.

Intermediate Weaves and Handles

Level: Intermediate (Students should have woven at least 1 willow basket prior to this class)
Class Length: 6 hours (9am to 4pm with 1-hour lunch breaks)

This intermediate class is designed to be the next step after our intro class. You’ll build on the foundational skills and begin to master more advanced techniques: different weaves for stronger and more even-looking baskets, more complex and beautuiful borders, and techniques for adding handles. You’ll finish the day with a medium-sized round basket with a handle!

Skills: French randing weaves, handles, advanced borders.

Spiral Bases and Willow Trays

Level: Intermediate (Students should have woven at least 1 willow basket prior to this class)
Class Length: 6 hours (9am to 4pm with 1-hour lunch breaks)

It’s time to get to the next level of base weaving! This class is all about the foundations of your basket. We’ll cover more advanced circular base weaving techniques for stronger and more beautiful bases. Depending on time, you’ll weave two to three basket trays: a small basket with a seamless transition between the base and the basket walls, and a larger tray that beautifully showcases your new swirl technique! We’ll also experiment with a completely different style of tray weaving: Catalan or tension trays.

Skills: Round French randing bases, seamless transitions from base to basket walls, tension trays.

Split-Level Baskets

Level: Advanced (Students should be experienced weavers, capable of weaving a sturdy, even, & attractive basket they are satisfied with)
Class Length: 6 hours (9am to 4pm with 1-hour lunch breaks)

Weave a beautiful basket with a handle that incorporates two beautiful elements: an asymmetrical design on the top, and a false wale weave on the lower part of the basket. These baskets are our most showy baskets for carrying to the famers market! Many people like to use them as knitting baskets as well.

Skills: Oval bases, advanced Franch randing techniques, false wale French randing, curved basket walls, uneven-height basket walls, handles using multiple uprights, specialty borders.

Pack Baskets

Level: Advanced (Students should be experienced weavers, capable of weaving a sturdy, even, & attractive basket they are satisfied with)
Class Length: 12 hours (2 days of 9am to 4pm with a 1-hour lunch break)

Our most requested class! This is the culmination of our willow weaving curriculum! Weaving your own pack basket requires mastery of most willow weaving techniques. Over the course of a weekend, you’ll create a durable, beautiful backpack made of willow! This 2-day class covers a range of advanced weaving topics, including a selection of fancy weaves like the herringbone that make your pack basket stand out. We’ll focus on basket shaping to create a curve that fits your back well and holds the kind of objects you want to carry. At the end of the second day, we’ll use rawhide to attach straps to your new backpack, and you can walk away with your belongings carried in your new pack baskets!

Skills: Oval bases, advanced French randing techniques, herringbone weaves, windows and gaps in baskets, 4-rod and 5-rod wales, advanced basket shaping, basket feet, pack basket straps

Basketry Class Schedule

The teacher listed first is the lead teacher for each course. Our basketry classes have a 1:4 instructor-to-student ratio, so with 5 or more students, we will bring in an assistant teacher.

Don’t See The Class You Want?

We teach public and private basketry classes across Colorado, and we want to work with you to bring basketry to your community! Get in touch with us and we can schedule a class or a series of classes. Usually, we need about 2 months of lead time to fill a public class. We can easily teach in these communities:

• The Front Range: Boulder, Denver, and Colorado Springs
• Colorado’s Western Slope: Paonia, Montrose, Gunnison, Grand Junction, Carbondale, and Aspen
• Four Corners Region: Durango, Mancos, and Cortez

Host a Basketry Class in Your Community

Jenna Bradford

Jenna grew up in the Sacramento River delta in California, swimming, climbing trees, searching for animals along the water’s edge, studying their ways, and always looking for excuses to be outside. She received her B.A. in Environmental Studies and Bioethics from Loyola University in Chicago. Before becoming a teacher, Jenna worked on farms in Colorado, designed and sewed clothing, and studyied plants through an herbalism apprenticeship with Wildroot Botanicals and an ethnobotany immersion with Raven’s Roots Naturalist School. Jenna taught 5th and 6th grade at Paonia’s North Fork School of Integrated Studies. She is excited to continue with some of her current students on this adventure. Jenna loves teaching because she loves learning and loves to share that enthusiasm with others.

Jeff Wagner

After a university education didn’t provide sufficient answers, Jeff began seeking answers to the big questions that weren’t answered by academia: how we might reimagine U.S. society in the age of climate change, and what it means to be a responsible human in an unraveling world. For over a decade, Jeff sought answers outside the mainstream: living at wolf sanctuary in the Colorado mountains, leading NOLS expeditions across North America, and facilitating cross-cultural semesters in the Andes, the Amazon, the Himalaya, and the great Mekong River Basin. Jeff’s biggest focus has been teaching to the cultural roots of environmental issues, and helping students both experience and examine different ways of life that can be applied as cultural activism at home in North America. As a person dedicated to questioning the mindsets stemming from settler-colonialism, Jeff finds inspiration in the communities working to maintain and strengthen relationships with the natural world and with the sources of food, water, clothing, shelter, and meaning. Jeff likes walking slowly, weaving fabric and baskets, and growing beautiful varieties of heirloom seeds. Jeff founded Groundwork to help people pursue the goal of becoming ancestors that their descendants will be proud to tell stories about. Jeff is a certified Wilderness First Responder.