Ivy Basket Weaving Tutorial 

Oh what a lovely connection to your mother! I love that! It is so great to see these old skills being used again - reconnecting with the land and nature crafts. I am sure your mom will be so happy to receive your handmade basket ❤️

Yay! Great work! Happy to support your stewardship and ecoart effort! 😊

Greetings! Glad to inspire you to do something useful with invasive ivy!

Thank you for your kind words. Glad to hear it was helpful for beginner weavers! Happy weaving! 😊

Awesome! So glad the tutorial was useful for you. Please reach out with us at Free the Fern if you would like to gather more ivy with us for weaving!

A Barbie basket?! Fantastic! So glad you found the video helpful and you were able to adapt the technique to your materials and purposes.

Glad it was helpful!

Thank you! Glad you found it useful!

Glad the video was recommended to you and you found it useful! That was the goal of creating this video - to inspire more people from around the world to try ivy weaving. Best of luck!

You’re welcome 😊

You are so welcome!

My pleasure!

Glad the video was helpful to you! Happy weaving!

Thank you! It is so fun to make them too :)

There is a small chance that person may find ivy irritating to their skin. However, in the many workshops with weaving ivy we have run, I have never had a single person exhibit a reaction to common English ivy. So, this reaction seems to be incredibly rare. Yes, I agree with you that ivy should be used more, as it is a very useful weaving material! Plus we want people to gather it in our parks and forest spaces, as it poses a risk to climbing and killing the local trees. If ivy weaving becomes more popular, it could do wonders for our local environment!

@@freethefern I agree. Our forest garden has quite a big area covered in ivy, and while I don't mind some of it aesthetically, when you want a garden on the wilder side (so not mowing between trees and fighting nature all the time), seeing ivy taking over a previously diverse patch is a bit of a bummer. But an important lesson I learned about weeds and unwanted plants is that the property that annoys you the most about a 'weed' is often a good indicator of how that plant can be a resource - so plants that are really hard to get rid of often are so because of their strong fibers - meaning they probably serve well as cordage or weaving material. And that made the ivy invasion a lot easier to handle, mentally. But going from harvesting a bit of cordage to actually making baskets is a lot more motivating! I just needed to know I wasn't completely bonkers for using it 😀 So thanks a lot! - I hope this trend catches on! ❤

@@niijntje I hope it catches on too. Very observant about the properties of invasives. Yes, I have heard from another eco-artist who uses morning glory for cordage too. It is so strong! We used it recently for making a bird nesting cage (see our most recent video on our channel). Best of luck and happy weaving!

I have always woven from fresh ivy. I think it is preferrable to weave from the fresh ivy, as the ivy is perfectly pliable and does not need to be soaked in water to "remoisten". You may collect it a day or two in advance of weaving, though. I would only dry ivy if I would need to collect it and use later in an area where ivy is not accessible. As, it ivy is readily available in my area, I have no need to dry for later.

English ivy leaves are not poisonous (unlike poison ivy, which you might be thinking of). You can actually buy ivy cough syrup at the pharmacy here in Vancouver, Canada. So, it is definetly fine for kids to play with the basket. As for food, we have had people use the baskets to store fruit, but other wet food wouldn’t work due to its structure. Many use the baskets to put small potted plants in, store buttons etc, and tall baskets can be used as a pen holder. So many uses!

You are most welcome!

You can make a great loosely woven basket with ivy, as seen in the video. Just don’t pull it as tight when weaving. Looks a lot like a nest when done.

Yes, Ivy can be picked and woven at any time of year. I have made baskets in every season with ivy. If ivy is soaking wet, such as from being covered with snow, I recommend bringing it inside and laying it down on a beach towel. Once most of the wetness is absorbed by the towel, then the ivy can be woven. Have fun! P.S. I have to also mention that woven ivy baskets, turned upside down, make a lovely lantern when you place an LED tea light below. we organized a lantern festival last December, and the ivy basket lanterns looked particularly beautiful with their warm light reflected on the freshly fallen snow.

@@freethefern I’m finding some of the Ivy is brittle - the larger stems. Right now I’m harvesting from Ivy growing up a tree.

@@hiyacynthia I don’t usually use the more mature ivy that is growing up the tree, as generally the stems are more thicker and woody. I use the ivy that is trialing along the ground, which is in a younger stage of growth.

@@freethefern ok

@@freethefern As a gardener and near-forest dweller who sees how older ivy is decimating the trees, has anyone come up with cool ideas for using the older/more mature/tree-climbing pieces?

Yes, you can dry the ivy and use it later. It would just need to be soaked in water to soften it before weaving.

Oh that’s brilliant , thank you. I’m very new too this. I’m gathering materials whilst the weather is good, with a view to weaving in the winter.

@@yonwife5879 Weaving would be a great winter activity. The nice thing about ivy too is you can harvest it all year (unlike weaving with Himalayan blackberry, which can only be harvested when the canes are flowering)

Oh, I didn’t know that about the blackberry. I had best get my skates on and gather some. What is the best way to store blackberry? The ivy I have tied loosely and hung it in the porch.

A great video that outlines how to make a basket from Himalayan Blackberry is this one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NpJXpkhWHyg.html

Thank you for your comment. I love your idea of "spreading" stewardship, rather than spreading invasive species. Currently, Free the Fern is a volunteer stewardship group focusing on invasive removal in South East Vancouver. But, there is a regional invasive species organization on the island: www.coastalisc.com/ They do amazing work in the area of invasive species removal and education. I would recommend reaching out to them, if you wish to get involved on the island!

Glad it was helpful! Happy weaving!

lol! 😄

Sorry that integrating the new weaver wasn’t clear. To integrate a new weaver, you match it up with the weaver you are replacing and trace back the path of this previous weaver (like it’s twin or shadow) for a few over and under movements through the basket. This allows the new weaver to be stuck in the basket and then it can be used as the new weaver. I hope that makes sense!

Fresh ivy is always best, if possible. Generally, we collect ivy up to 3 days before and use fresh. But, yes, if you wish to use after drying, it will need to be soaked. Good luck!

Hello thank you for sharing your comment. Sorry to hear that you found it to be hard to view. We tried our best to shoot from multiple angles. It is a challenging thing to capture the weaving technique, as the hands have to move over the basket. We tried our best with what we had available. Note we made this video as a 100% volunteer effort to support public education 😊