Melinda West | West Gardens Basketry

Growing, gathering, and weaving with plant fibers from the Pacific Northwest

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Porch Papermaking With Food Plants – Cardoon and Kale

May 14, 2025 By Melinda

The days are getting longer. Exquisite scents of growing plants fill the air. The pollen makes me cry, but it’s all worth it! Today I’d like to introduce you to an easy to grow garden plant for making strong, flexible paper. Cardoon is a perennial culinary plant in the artichoke family, with stalks harvestable early spring through mid summer. When … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Artwork, Community, News, Plants and Places, Resources, Upcoming Tagged With: Cardoon paper, Helen Hiebert, Kale paper, Lichen, May Babcock, papermaking, Porch papermaking, spring

Grateful for Wonderful Students

July 31, 2016 By Melinda

Folded Cedar Bark Pouch with Braided Border and Shell Button

I've been meaning to catch up on blogging, but life has its way! Between a bumper crop of raspberries and Marionberries to pick, regular harvesting of our produce, family gatherings, and a lovely hike in the Olympics with friends, I've been silent! I hope to remedy this beginning now, with some entries that are retrospective of the past year or … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Students, Weaving with Cedar, Workshops Tagged With: Bainbridge Artisan Resource Network, BARN, Cedar From Tree To Pouch, spring, students, teaching, workshop

UW Society of Ethnobiology

May 30, 2015 By Melinda

It was a beautiful day for the outdoor workshop 'Weaving With Invasives' held in the lovely Medicinal Herb Garden on Seattle's UW campus.  I'm grateful to the UW Society of Ethnobiolgy which hosted this event, and especially to Alex Harwell and Ashley Blazina. Along with organizing this event they made sure we had plenty of English ivy and Reed … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Students, Weaving from the Wild, Workshops Tagged With: English ivy, ethnobiology, ethnobotany, ivy, Small Plant Fiber Projects, spring, students, UW Society of Ethnobiology, Weaving with invasives

Cedar Workshop June 6, 2015

May 12, 2015 By Melinda

Cedar Bark Pouch

June 6, 2015, I'll be teaching a workshop at the Rolling Barn, in Rolling Bay Washington.  I'll be bringing in a freshly cut Western Red Cedar tree so students can learn from the tree to the finishing, how to make a folded cedar bark pouch.  The class size is limited so every person will get plenty of individualized attention. There will be enough … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Students, Weaving with Cedar, Workshops Tagged With: Bainbridge Artisans Resource Network, BARN, Cedar From Tree To Pouch, spring, students, Weaving With Western Red Cedar, Western red cedar, workshop

Weaving With Western Red Cedar

May 11, 2015 By Melinda

It was a lovely week at IslandWood this May, with every kind of weather. Warm and sunny, then cool winds with dramatic clouds and thunder, torrential spurts of showers, and back again to warm slightly humid air, scented with the fragrance of everything living.   I brought a simple project for both the graduate students professional … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Students, Weaving Nature, Workshops Tagged With: cordage, Eagle Rock Multi-Age School, inner cedar bark, Island Wood, Professional development, sap is up, spring, students, The Evergreen School, The Valley School, Weaving With Western Red Cedar, Western red cedar, wild rose blooms, Woodenville Montessori, woven Cedar Bark Mat Wall-Hanging

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Recent Posts

  • Local History – Interview With Barbara Ann Lawrence – Suquamish Tribal Cultural Teacher and Storyteller
  • Porch Papermaking With Food Plants – Cardoon and Kale
  • Paper from the Ditch – Weathered Reed Canary Grass
  • Late Winter Papermaking – Mixing Siberian Iris Leaves and Lichens
  • More Spring Porch Papermaking – With Ivy Leaves

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About Melinda

Forty years ago, while sitting on the beach playing with my young children, I made my first basket out of a pile of willow trimmings someone had tossed there. It looked wildly made like a crazy bird’s nest. While being together with my two sons on a beautiful Pacific Northwest shoreline, this simple experience of crafting with the natural materials at hand kindled a passion for creating forms using plant fibers. I thank my family, my community, and all my teachers for cultivating this gift in me.
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