About

Northwest Coast Basket Weaving 
with Nancy Sigo

BARN Members: $98

NonMembers: $127

The Salish Peoples of the Puget Sound Region have always been known as Weaving Cultures.  Suquamish Weaver Nancy Sigo will share her wealth of knowledge about weaving with Western Red Cedar.  Participants will engage in preparing their own cedar bark strip for weaving; learning how to split it to the desired widths. Learning the splitting technique is an important part of the teaching.  Nancy will provide her prepared materials in kits, so students will have enough of the beautifully prepared split cedar to make a 4"X 4" woven basket.  Students will learn the techniques of basic weaving, and twining using dyed raffia and will learn about, and have the opportunity to use, bear grass as a decorative weaving element.  Students will use natural or dyed materials as they are designing their basket, learning to control the shape as they progress, and finishing the edge with a beautiful folded and wrapped rim.

Instructor:  Nancy Sigo, a member of the Suquamish Tribe, learned to gather, process, prepare and weave cedar bark; through the time honored cultural connection of using native plant fibers to weave traditional material objects for a wide variety of functional uses.  Over 26 years ago, Nancy began to learn from her relatives all aspects of how to weave with Western Red Cedar, and many other weaving materials like Bear grass, NW Sweet Grass, Rye Grass, and Nettles.  Nancy shares important knowledge from her own life experiences and her Salish weaving culture.  When, where, and how to gather; how to process and store the materials, so many lessons to learn.  Nancy feels very blessed with the gift of weaving from a long line of grandmother teachers.  She looks forward to meeting others who share a desire to learn this type of weaving and will gladly share that knowledge.

Additional Materials Fee payable at first class: Choice of Kits $60 or $80, check or cash.

$60 - Includes white raffia; choice of one colored raffia; prepared cedar strips.

$80 - These kits will be pre-packaged and color coordinated. (cedar strip colors could be limited.) Kit includes white raffia and dyed material; cedar strips in shades of red, brown, black or green; raffia: red, brown, maroon, blue, green, or purple.