This week on WHITEBALLOON INSIGHTS we loved hearing from Steph Shaw of Wegnalls Willow Coffins about her journey into willow weaving and the process behind her handcrafted creations.
Q: Steph, there is a wonderful story behind your journey into weaving. We’d love you to share it with us.
In 2017 I left my job as a primary school teacher to travel around South America by bicycle with my partner. It was such a great experience but the pandemic halted our travel plans, and we moved back to my partner’s family farm in rural Herefordshire. While helping with the cattle and learning how to run the farm, a family friend, who’s a basketmaker, brought my niece a basket she had made while teaching a class. She said it was a bit wonky and not good enough to sell… I thought it was amazing! So I went on a beginners workshop with her and absolutely loved it. The next month I enrolled on the City & Guilds basketry course at Westhope College in Shropshire, and that was three years ago. I have been hooked ever since!
Q: It seems that using and adapting these skills to make coffins has been quite profound for you. Why is this?
Definitely. I discovered willow coffins after my Grandad died and his was the first coffin I had seen. It was a veneer coffin that I felt to be impersonal and anonymous, so I started researching willow coffins and how to make one. I went on a course with another independent maker and my business, Wegnalls Willow Coffins, has grown from there.
I do enjoy making baskets, but I love making willow coffins and ashes urns. They are the most special basket that you can make for someone and it’s lovely to help families create a coffin that is beautiful, personal and made with care.
Q: You grow the willow on your farm in Herefordshire. Why is this important to you?
Willow is an incredible, renewable resource. One cutting (a 12” stick poked in the ground!) will grow 40+ new willow rods in a year and continue for decades from the same original stool. The year’s growth is harvested in the winter and the cycle begins again.
I love this circular aspect of the craft. Growing the willow within sight of my workshop, and weaving it into coffins that return to the earth just feels right. Even when cremated, the carbon footprint is far lower than using imported willow or slow-growing hardwoods. It’s local, renewable and rooted in care for the land.
Q: And you grow an incredible 26 different varieties of willow! We’d love to hear about the different characteristics of some of these and what they are used for?
Three commonly used basketry willows, Dicky Meadows, Brittany Green and Black Maul, are readily available from commercial growers and are the varieties I grow in the greatest quantity. They reliably grow between 3 to 8 foot in length, are not too chunky or branchy, and can be used for all aspects of coffin and basket weaving. For these reasons, they also make up the bulk of the brown willow I use, as they are such a staple.
However if you want a wider range of colours or specific qualities, it really helps to grow your own. For example, I need fine, long willow rods for the weavers in coffins and baskets, and stouter ones become frames for baskets, corner posts in a square basket or even garden structures.
I have a few favourite varieties that I grow, such as Brittany Blue which always grows beautiful straight rods and dries with a blueish hue. Packing Twine is another pale green/grey willow that grows lovely long, chunkier rods and Continental Purple is a very dark purple willow that always seems to reach over 10 foot in a year! I don’t grow a lot of these, compared to the commonly used varieties, so it’s always special to weave these into a basket or coffin.
Q: You make a wonderful range of baskets, including private commissions. Tell us about some of your favourites.
Commissions are great because I’m able to make exactly what someone wants for a particular purpose. They are generally something slightly out of the ordinary, something that isn’t available elsewhere and I enjoy the challenge.
I recently made a shopping trolley on wheels with lid for a customer, which was a bespoke size and quite difficult to find a frame and wheels for. Luckily my partner’s dad made the metal frame for me and after speaking to my local mobility store, I got some wheels that had been taken off an old wheelchair.
Another was an ashes urn basket with dyed willow and two hinged lids to match one that held another family member’s ashes. That was very special and I feel honoured to have been asked to weave it for them.
Q: Families and friends can get involved in weaving the coffin. What do you feel are the benefits of involving them in this way?
It’s always a pleasure having families come and weave part of the coffin themselves. The gentle, repetitive movements of weaving can be calming and it gives people space to reflect and connect. Hearing families share stories and memories of their loved one, working through their grief, makes what I do feel deeply meaningful and is at the heart of what I do.
Q: Each coffin is handmade and unique, and it is possible to further personalise the coffin. What types of embellishments are popular?
The most common request I have is to use different combinations of willow to add colours or patterns to the coffin, but I always work with a family if they have a special request to personalise their coffin further.
I recently made a coffin for a lady that loved to knit and some of her woollen creations were incorporated into the weaving around the handles. Another coffin was for person who used to help with a friend’s willow harvest, so we added some freshly cut willows and catkins from their willow patch into the weaving.
Q: And finally, you are clearly a creative person, do you have other hobbies or skills that make use of this?
Music has been a big part of my life, both listening and playing. I have been playing the flute since was seven and I am now enjoying the challenge of learning the piano. But I have always been creative. As a child I was always drawing (I love stationary) and doing something with arts & crafts, so not much has changed other than I’m now paid for making things!
Thank you Steph for sharing these insights
To find out more about Steph and her work, please go to Wegnalls Willow Coffins.