Willow Tension Tray Workshop with Cherry Chung

Basketweaver Cherry Chung delivers a range of workshops in traditional and contemporary willow basket making and sculpture. This online workshop will teach you to make tension trays, a satisfying and deceptively simple way to make a willow platter. You’ll receive a kit of willow in advance ready to soak and have enough to make an extra tray after the course.

About the materials: Cherry uses a mix of basketry willows, some grown in Somerset and some coppiced locally, and on specific courses we may also use other materials. Basketry willows are one year old rods which are either dried with the bark left on (known as ‘brown’ willow); boiled with the bark on, to release the tannins giving a golden colour when peeled (known as ‘buff’), or else peeled in spring when the sap rises and the bark can be easily stripped, revealing a bright white rod (‘white’ willow). Before using, the willow needs soaking in cold water, and for brown willow this can be between 3 and 7 days depending on the size, the time of year and the variety of willow. Peeled willows are soaked in cold water for 1 to 2 hours.