Pine Needle Basket Weaving

Workshop is full

Join Bea Acosta for a fun and creative workshop on how to make a pine needle basket. You will make a small basket 4”-5” in diameter , learn different stitches and three different methods of starting a center. The workshop will take place on Saturday and Sunday, February 8  & 9 from 11 am to 4 pm. The fee is $80 for Gualala Arts Members and $110 for non-members, plus a $40 materials fee payable to the instructor.
You will need to bring needle nose pliers, a small hand towel, and small scissors and beads. You will make a small basket of about 4 to 5 inches in diameter, using different stitches and methods to start the center. This is a great opportunity to learn a new skill and create a beautiful and unique basket.

Materials List

Needle Nose pliers, small hand towel, small scissors, beads

About Bea Acosta

After searching for most of my adult life for a creative media I discovered my hands drawn to clay in 2000.  The majority of my learning has taken place under the tutelage of Kay Like,( Brandybuck Studios)  who provided a nurturing studio in which to explore, be creative and turn failures into learning experiences. 

I learned how to make pine needle baskets to enhance my pottery in about 2004.  I am now devoting most of my creative time to fashioning baskets and basket forms with pine needles, Watsonia leaves, Amaryllis leaves, sweet grass and sea grass. I am delighted in the shapes and colors I weave together to make a one-of-a-kind basket or basket form. I enjoy  combining colors and using beads to bring out the final form.   

I love the earthiness of the material used in basket making and the reverence shown to the natural elements that are collected under the mother tree.  I can sense the ancestors deep in my cells as I create. 

I have branched out in the past several years and started making baskets that do not serve a normal basket function. I call them pine needle woven creations.  There are gaps in the coils with beads that usually fill the space.  Creating a flowing nonfunctional basket is like being in a free-form dance. It is very meditative and a patience type of creativity.

I rarely develop a plan as I create with clay or pine needles. I am always assessing and letting the piece speak to me, whatever appears is meant to be. I am blessed to live on the coast surrounded by the magic of nature that always inspires me and evokes the feeling of another time and place.

Gualala Arts retains $35 fee for cancelations, no refunds after the sign – up by date of February 1