Basket maker Mollie McMillen is endlessly thrilled and fascinated by the thought that people have been weaving vessels from natural materials for thousands of years. “Basketry uses all these ancient skills and techniques and I love that connection with history and where we all came from,” she says. “It makes me feel very close to the earth.”
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Her inspiration is the rural landscape around her Hampshire home, where she finds most of her materials. From tree plantations and hedgerows to sweet chestnut coppices, rushes, willow and garden prunings, she has a rich sourcebook. “I have a mental map of the gardens, hedges and woods in this area, where various things live; it’s a seasonal map to find things at different times of year,” she explains.
Preparing the materials for weaving is a big part of the craft. Mollie uses bark from felled trees, each with its own time for harvesting. With western red cedar there’s a two-week sweet spot in May before the sap turns thick and sticky, while other barks can be harvested later in the season. Then there are elaborate soaking processes for different plant materials – willow needs a day per foot – and a period of mellowing before it is flexible enough to work with. Hedgerow and smaller plant fibres need less preparation time.
Mollie is largely self-taught. Always passionate about the outdoors, she started working with children on the fringes of education and found her way to basket weaving through teaching bushcraft skills.
Beginning with small knife pouches made from bark, she and her husband, artist Nick McMillen, played around with different foraged fibres as their basketry skills evolved. Mollie learned and taught as she went, soon bringing willow weaving into the mix. “There are a lot of techniques involved with willow,” she says, “but if you nail them, you can be more free with what you’re making.”
When the Covid pandemic hit and the outdoor-learning centre closed, she seized the opportunity to become a full-time maker and has received official recognition for her work from the Worshipful Company of Basketmakers – the traditional guild founded in 1569. She now weaves all manner of vessels, including baskets, cots – and coffins. The first coffin she and Nick wove was made of sweet chestnut bark. “It was one of the loveliest things we have ever done. I really liked that process of making a vessel knowing that it’s very important and is going to hold someone’s precious body.”
Ultimately, it took too long to harvest the amount of bark needed for coffins and Mollie now weaves them from willow because of its strength, flexibility and availability, often incorporating bark and other plant fibres into the designs. “When you’re making coffins, there is a really beautiful intention to it,” she explains. “Bereaved relatives will come and weave part of the coffin and the caskets too, which is an amazing thing to offer; it can be a very intimate process.”
Much of Mollie’s work is made to commission, ranging from large garden pieces such as arbours, plant supports and fencing – she created the outdoor hurdles for Pollyanna Wilkinson’s 2023 RHS Chelsea Flower Show garden – to baskets and recently lampshades, experimenting with different materials to see what emerges.
Her studio is piled high with coils and reams of bark, bundles of willow rods and rows of plant fibres awaiting transformation. There are no favourites for Mollie and she enjoys the journey of sometimes not quite knowing how things will turn out.
“I get absorbed in whatever I’m working with,” she says. “Unless I’ve got a commission and I have to make things a certain way, I love seeing what happens; I know that I’ve got enough skills up my sleeves to just go with it. I love the randomness of the plant fibres and not thinking about what I’m making, just
seeing what crops up out of my hands. It’s lovely to be able to just listen to the materials and work out what they’re going to lead you towards.”
USEFUL INFORMATION
Find out more about Mollie’s work and her courses at molliemcmillen.co.uk Mollie also sells one-off pieces at The Makers Barn in Petworth. makersbarn.co.uk