Weave a Pine Needle Basket
Sat, Oct. 31 | 10am | Set Price

Every fall, the pines drop their needles and most of us reach for a rake. Nancy Basket reaches for a needle and thread.
Pine needle basketry turns a forest floor's worth of fallen needles into something sturdy, fragrant, and beautiful enough to hand down. Nancy learned the craft in 1981, and loved the longleaf pine so much she moved to South Carolina so she could gather her own needles. Her pine needle work has since toured the country and landed in museum collections.
You'll learn how the needles bend, how they bundle, and why longleaf is the weaver's favorite. Then you'll start your coil and stitch your own small basket from the center out.

In this class, you’ll cover:
- How to begin a coil and keep it even, round after round
- The stitches that hold a pine needle basket together, and how they create pattern as you go
- How and when to gather, clean, and store pine needles so you can keep weaving at home
- The Cherokee stories and family traditions woven into Nancy's work

No basket-making experience required. If you can thread a needle, you can do this.
You'll leave with the start of a handmade pine needle basket, the skills to finish it (and the next one), and a new appreciation for what's piling up under your pines.

Nancy Basket is a Cherokee fiber artist, master basket weaver, and storyteller based in Walhalla, South Carolina. She has spent more than 30 years teaching basketry and storytelling in schools, colleges, museums, and workshops across the Southeast.