Soft launching. More makers all summer.Soft launching with our founding makers. More arriving through the summer.
Soft launching. More makers all summer.Soft launching with our founding makers. More arriving through the summer.
This is the 16-inch form, made for hard use. Coppiced oak is split along the grain, cleaved into thin strips, dressed, boiled, and then woven wet around the rim. Two willow hoops give the basket its frame; peeled hazel ribs structure the weave.
Oak swill baskets are southern Lake District by origin. In Scotland the same form is known as the tattie basket, after potatoes. They carried potatoes from the field and coal onto steam ships. Apprentices were said to test a finished basket by standing in it. Simon repeats this with the caveat that he wouldn't recommend trying it.
This one is shaped for work first, decoration second. Logs by the fire, market produce, picnic kit, a blanket throw next to the sofa. The two-hoop construction makes it the most structurally generous of the 16-inch options; it carries weight without slumping.
Simon is the only oak swill basket maker remaining in Scotland. The craft sits on the Heritage Crafts Red List as critically endangered. Each basket he makes is a stay of execution.
This is the 16-inch form, made for hard use. Coppiced oak is split along the grain, cleaved into thin strips, dressed, boiled, and then woven wet around the rim. Two willow hoops give the basket its frame; peeled hazel ribs structure the weave.
Oak swill baskets are southern Lake District by origin. In Scotland the same form is known as the tattie basket, after potatoes. They carried potatoes from the field and coal onto steam ships. Apprentices were said to test a finished basket by standing in it. Simon repeats this with the caveat that he wouldn't recommend trying it.
This one is shaped for work first, decoration second. Logs by the fire, market produce, picnic kit, a blanket throw next to the sofa. The two-hoop construction makes it the most structurally generous of the 16-inch options; it carries weight without slumping.
Simon is the only oak swill basket maker remaining in Scotland. The craft sits on the Heritage Crafts Red List as critically endangered. Each basket he makes is a stay of execution.
Simon Cooper is the only oak swill basket maker left in Scotland. He works from a single room in Crieff, splitting coppiced oak with a cleaver, soaking the strips, weaving them while still wet, the same way the form has been built for four hundred years.
