Jodie Goldring

Spring is time for random weaving, one of my favourite basketry techniques to explore! The random weaving workshop scheduled for today at Newstead Arts Hub has been cancelled due to flooding. So, I am taking this quieter day (than planned) to write about plant fibre I collect during Spring.

The last of the willow that I collected during winter and into early spring is still sitting in buckets of water. It will be used during the random weaving workshops I facilitate throughout Term 4. Any left will be made into wreaths, dried and used to make the frameworks of melon baskets next year.

The evergreen vine hardenbergia (or happy wanderer) has finished flowering and is ready to prune. It is worth the time and effort it takes to strip the leaves off this sprawling vine as it is a premium random weaving material.

Wayward lengths of wisteria can be collected now (before the leaves shoot) or can be rehydrated from material collected in winter (when many prune their wisteria). I soak mine in an outside bath for a couple of days before the workshop. Checking it once in a while to make sure it doesn’t soak long enough for the bark to discolour. I have found a couple of wild wisteria plants and collect the trailing lengths along the ground at this time. They can be used green, that saves work as I don’t have to dry and rehydrate the material!

Here are random weave works I made in 2020 that were shown at Craft Lab in Ballarat during May this year. They were made using willow, wisteria and hardenbergia and these three plant fibres work well together to create strong and complex randomly woven forms.