WEAVING A TRADITION: THE MATERIALS
Coppiced wood
Coppiced wood stems – young trees cut close to the ground to encourage vigorous new growth – make simple furniture and accessories. Knots and twists add extra character, while torn, ‘swilled’ strips can be woven to form baskets and chair seats. Many of today’s most distinctive furniture makers trained with coppicers and conservationists, learning how to work with young, pliable greenwood alongside sustainable woodland management.
Willow
Another of the home-grown options (from Somerset to Scotland), willow supplies stems in a range of colours including red, green and gold. Harvested in winter, dried and then wetted again to make it pliable enough for use, it can be woven into baskets and furniture and also turned into wreaths and artworks: makers such as Lizzie Farey have diversified beyond baskets into willow vessels, ‘nests’, sculptures and wall-hung panels.
Rattan
Harvested from the solid core of a Southeast Asian palm, rattan can be steamed and moulded into rigid shapes such as graceful bed frames and lampshades, as well as woven to form wicker chair seats and table tops, or create textured panels for drawer fronts and cupboard doors. No longer confined to the conservatory or hotel lounges, it adds freshness when used sparingly amid upholstered furniture.
Sisal & seagrass
Sisal is a natural fibre from the agave plant. Tough and durable, it can be woven into a variety of patterns – from bouclé to herringbone – to make practical flooring and pliable, versatile storage baskets. Seagrass is even more resilient: a hardy grass grown underwater in Vietnamese and Chinese plantations, where the salt content gives it a natural stain-resistance that is very useful for flooring and rugged, textured, woven furniture.
Jute
This natural vegetable fibre is traditionally spun into the strong bands used in furniture suspension (Graham & Green sells a ‘deconstructed’ chair with its jute webbing exposed at the back). Softer than seagrass or sisal, it makes good bedroom flooring (gentle on bare feet), can be knitted into chunky upholstery for pouffes and footstools – and, in its ‘off the roll’ form of hessian, is used to make simple, slubby curtains and sofa covers.
Rush
Established in Britain since the 14th century, and given an extra boost by the Arts and Crafts movement, rush weaving has long been a staple of country flooring and other furnishings. Practitioners include Felicity Irons, who harvests bulrushes from riverbeds in Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire for her Rush Matters business, and Waveney Rush in Suffolk, which grew out of a longestablished East Anglian weaving tradition.