Date 5-6 July 2025 (2 Days)
Price £220
Maximum number of places 6
Book Using this link or contact Chelle @chelle.mateo on Instagram for more information.
Course Details
Spend a two-day workshop discovering how to weave a square-bottom to round top ash splint basket with Chelle Mateo. The techniques that participants will learn have their roots in traditional basket making of North America.
The course will cover:
Preparation and background
Each ash splint used to weave the basket starts as a section of the tree’s growth ring and is created through pounding an ash log. Students will do the process themselves and learn the different tools used to prepare them including strip cutters and carving knives.
Processes and finishing
You will learn how to do basic weave, understand form and tension.
Basic theory
Identifying ash, discussions on choosing a log for pounding, the pounding process and the threat of ash dieback to the species.
Although some previous experience of basketry may be helpful, it is not essential. Students must have good physical strength endurance as the first day is very labour intensive. The skills learnt throughout the course will give you the foundation to adapt future baskets to your own design and it will give you a new appreciation of the mighty ash; its durability, flexibility, strengths and weaknesses.
Instructions
The course will begin each day at 9.30am and end at 4.30pm
Catering:
For all courses, a hearty, healthy lunch is provided (please let your tutor know of any dietary requirements when booking), along with tea, coffee and water. Breakfast and evening meal is self-catered, with firewood and charcoal-based cooking available.
We also provide firewood, brew-kit, washing up and cooking facilities, crockery and cutlery.
Guests should bring; barbecue food or pans for cooking on a fire for breakfast and evening meals.
Facilities:
Facilities include covered workshop spaces, an undercover outdoor cooking set-up, comfortable compost toilet, plenty of loo roll, and handwashing. A good stone track leads to the wood where there is space to park, please keep speed under 10mph.
Tutor Bio
Teacher and skilled craftworker Chelle Mateo began her journey as a green wood craftsperson over a decade ago, with a background ecological conservation and management, recognising the growing need for people to reconnect to their environment, understand it and to protect it.
A member of the Heritage Crafts Association, Basket Makers Association, Oxfordshire Basketmakers and the Association of Pole-lathe Turners & Green Woodworkers. Having learned from the some of the best craftspeople in their field, her mentors encouraged her to push her craft further and she is now recognised as one of the most esteemed makers in the UK, with a real focus in making ash splint baskets, bowl turning on a pole lathe and leather work.
Chelle enjoys working off-grid with hand tools, using only hardwood that is locally sourced, from sustainably managed woodlands as part of a natural thinning and woodland regeneration process, naturally air or solar kiln dried.