Basket Weaving: Willow Picnic Baskets w/ Tyler Lavenburg - Asheville, NC

Willow basketry is a craft built slowly—through repetition, patience and the steady conversation between hands and material. In this immersive 3-day willow workshop, you’ll weave a durable, beautifully functional picnic / gathering basket using the traditional European stake and strand method, a technique carried across generations by migrant ancestors and still trusted today.

Working with strong yet supple willow, you’ll create a compact version of a full pack basket, but small enough to manage comfortably, yet still crafted with strength and durability. These baskets are meant to be used: for harvesting food, carrying daily essentials, or heading out into the wilderness for a beautiful picnic! Your finished piece will be completed with your choice of a wrapped willow handle or soft leather straps.

Beloved Firefly friend and willow weaver Tyler Lavenburg, guides the process with care and attention, helping students move through the inevitable moments of challenge toward real skill and confidence. As your basket takes form, you’ll learn a variety of traditional weaves while developing an intuitive understanding of how willow bends, holds, and even breaks–such good metaphors for life.

Open to all experience levels, this class is ideal for anyone drawn to traditional handcraft, practical skill-building, and the quiet pride of making the things we need in our everyday lives.

• A beautiful and unique handwoven picnic / gathering basket made start to finish by you
• Knowledge of willow propagation, tending and sustainable harvesting techniques
• Hands-on experience with a variety of traditional basket weaves
• The skills and understanding to replicate the entire weaving process on your own
• A deeper connection to an ancient craft rooted in European heritage
• A renewed confidence and appreciation for what your hands can make and do

This class will be held outdoors on Friday, Saturday & Sunday, September 18-20, 2026, from 12:00 pm - 5:00 pm on Friday and 9:00 am – 5:00 pm on Saturday & Sunday, near Weaverville, NC.

All Firefly Gathering workshops are hosted in the greater Asheville area, sometimes at private venues. For that reason, the actual venue address will be included in your Welcome email, approximately one week before the workshop. Please note that classes are not actually held at Westgate Parkway.

Onsite camping will be available for a small fee and can be arranged directly with the Instructor.
Feel free to contact [email protected] if you have questions beforehand.

The minimum age is 12 with previous craft experience and accompanied by a parent, otherwise the minimum age is 16. Moderate hand strength is recommended for this workshop. Please be prepared to sit on the ground while crafting.

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Basket Weaving: Willow Picnic Baskets w/ Tyler Lavenburg

Tyler and his family align their life with the cycles of the seasons and the bounty of the wild. They harvest and utilize as much as they can from the gardens and forests around them. 

Tyler first fell in love with Southern Appalachian ecology as a student at Warren Wilson College, where he received a degree in Environmental Education. The children’s novel My Side of the Mountain sparked Tyler’s passion for traditional skills and wild foods. Since then, he’s been blessed with teachers and mentors who continue to draw his attention into deeper layers of mystery and the possibilities around crafting a handmade, wild life.

Over the years, Tyler has studied, apprenticed and taught at many traditional skills schools and events, including Wild Abundance, The Roots School, Living Earth School, Earthskills Rendezvous, The Firefly Gathering, Florida Earthskills, Whippoorwill, and others. He’s worked with hundreds of children and adults through public and private schools, homeschool cooperatives, and special events. 

Tyler has experience in many traditional crafts and skills, with a special passion for willow basketry. He tends around 30 species of European basket willow and plans to provide basket material and live cuttings to the Asheville community in the near future. 

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