Small Berry Basket

 I've had quite a few people suggest I should make a smaller basket in my range.

Well I've been thinking about it lots, drawn a few sketches and made a few prototypes, and this is the one I've come up! The Berry basket - Ideal for collecting precious berries from the garden or even collecting the eggs from the chickens. 

I'm really pleased with it, it has the "cute" appeal I was going for, but is also really practical. 

Basket In A Basket

I should have released the last blog post after this one! But the video wasn't uploading very quickly (about 16 hours...). 

This was a basket I got asked to make in the run up to Christmas. Normally I'd say no as it's always a difficult time with time management then, but in a moment of weakness I agreed. It was unusual enough to be interesting. 

The lady wanted a basket for her husband and she wanted a basket within a basket with a divider. She also wanted it bigger than my usual baskets. 

How To Make A Harvest Basket

 So I got asked to write an autumnal project for Woodcarving magazine. My mind went straight to harvesting and a harvest basket. I make many of these already for sale, but I didn't have one that you could carve the sides on, not really anyway. 

I decided to make a new design, more like a traditional trug in shape, that would have a wide side that I could carve. 

This is a video of two parts, this first part I'm making the new basket, bending the ash for the handle and just dialling in the design. I was really pleased with it. The handle looked great. I ended up listing it on Etsy as a one off and sold it within a few hours, so I guess others agreed as well! 

If you want to support me and what we do here you can buy one of my other harvest baskets here -

I put a lot of effort into my baskets and other products and I really love it when people buy them, but even more when they send me pictures of them in use! It really makes me smile.

I keep wondering what the next step with my products is. Do I list them with more online stores like Notonthehighstreet, or do I approach physical shops? I've had a few contact me lately. Or do I start doing shows?

Small Scale Production - Medium Harvest Baskets

I took a picture on Tuesday that I thought really showed some of the small scale production I do. 

This is all the wooden parts for making 12 baskets. Each basket has 9 bits (so 108 total) and they have to be oiled individually to make sure they're properly coated. Making things in batches like this keeps things moving, but can be a little boring! I listen to a good book in my headphones or a podcast. 

The baskets will get assembled tomorrow before being listed to hopefully get sold (some are already pre ordered) before I move on to the next thing to batch out and make. Making in batches like this keeps the quality high and I become surprisingly efficient with movements to do each job. 

When you have to make a number of items do you prefer to batch out the jobs? Or spread it out to prevent it from becoming monotonous?

Ash Splint Baskets - Day 2

 Day two of the course was far easier than day one!

Day two was to use the materials we'd prepped to make some baskets!

Ash Splint Baskets - Day 1

 On a whim the other day I booked a weekend away for my wife and me. Now obviously I'm someone who enjoys doing something and when I saw a course about ash basket weaving I was really interested. This wasn't a subject I knew anything about and I thought it might be a good mix of my woodworking skills and my wife's skills for knitting/sewing. 

The course was near Bristol, was over tow days and my wife had been given a hotel voucher to use for her birthday so we decided to make a weekend of it. The course was through a company called Tree to Treen and the instructor was to be Chell Mateo