Creative with Nature

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Creative with Nature

Willow weaver sharing the art of weaving one creation at a time Hi my name is Joe Gregory, I’m a willow basket maker, sculptor and teacher.
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I started weaving as a hobby in 2004 and by 2008, I realised I could make a living doing a craft that I loved. Starting from my kitchen table my skill grew organically alongside my growing children and my work teaching for the Workers Education Association and as a Forest School Leader. Over the years weaving with Willow has provided me with the most rewarding career whilst enabling me to keep my family safe and healthy. From 2014 I made weaving my main profession. I teach sculpture and basket making for a number of larger organisations nationally, occasionally internationally and from my own venue in West Yorkshire. I’ve worked on some amazing projects over the years and feel very lucky to have found this beautiful craft. I am comfortable teaching pretty much anybody from young children to those recovering from serious illness or injury. With the right support I believe weaving is for everyone! My classes are suitable for beginners to more advanced weavers. I’m proud to be able to say a third of my students are returning students. I’ve helped many people on their journey to become professional and serious hobbyists and I’m developing new resources all the time to open up this craft to as many people as I can.

13/09/2026

I'm really happy to be able to tell you my first indepth online basket making course, my version of the beautiful, contemporary Asymmetrical basket is now available on an early access release.

With over 6 hours of indepth cinematic tuition it'll be like coming to one of my classes but in the comfort of your own home wherever you are in the world. I've been teaching this basket to students for over a decade at my studio in West Yorkshire and I've taught hundreds of people to weave with it.

This is such a great basket to practice and develop your skills on with lots of interesting design patterns to explore. It's consistently been one of my most popular courses and the one I'm asked to teach the most 🧡

If you're looking for a new hobby to really get your teeth into or wanting to develop your skills this is a great place to start.

If you join my early access list you'll also receive a 20% discount and access to my comprehensive willow soaking guide. Follow the link in my bio or check out the comments for the link.

Happy weaving 🍂👑🍂

06/09/2026

My first class after the summer hols and my first class after selling my teaching venue in West Yorkshire.
A lovely group of brand new baskets weavers RHS Bridgewater

Felt so good to be back making and what a great bunch of students and beautiful venue come back to.

All 9 students made their first basket, so impressed with their results, well done everyone 👏

After many months putting it together my first indepth online basket making course comes out later this month and I'll be releasing next year's in person workshops in October.

If you like to join the early access lists of either or both just follow the link in my bio.
🍂🧡🍂

31/08/2026

A nourishing weekend in my happy place, a field somewhere in the UK surrounded by passionate, extremely talented crafts people from around the world.
The wonderful biennial Tear Up - Willow & Fibre Festival dreamt up and organised by Eddie Glew (aka Eddie Glew) and an army of dedicated volunteers. Bringing together our growing community of weavers and other associated crafts from across Europe and around the world.
Feeling happy and inspired. Really looking forward to getting my new workshop set up, experimenting more and developing my own practice 🥰
Thank you so much to everyone who made it happen ###

16/08/2026

I’m very excited to finally share something I’ve been working on for quite a while.

My very first online willow weaving course is coming soon, The Asymmetrical Basket Course.

I’ve been teaching this basket for more than a decade, and it has always been one of my most popular workshops. I’ve watched hundreds of people make their first basket through this project, so when I started thinking about creating my first online course, it felt like the natural place to begin.

For the first time, I’m bringing the workshop online, so you can learn with me wherever you are in the world.

The course includes over 6 hours of detailed tuition, taking you step by step through the making of the Asymmetrical Basket while introducing you to the fundamental techniques of round basketry.

It’s designed with beginners in mind, but if you’ve already started learning to weave, it’s also a chance to strengthen your foundations, develop your confidence and spend some time getting to know the material and techniques more deeply.

And because you’re learning online, there’s no need to rush. You can pause, practise, rewatch a lesson and come back to it whenever you’re ready. You’ll have lifetime access to the complete course.

I’ve always loved the way basketry gives us the opportunity to slow down, work with our hands and become completely absorbed in what we’re doing. I’m really looking forward to sharing that experience with you.

The Early Access List is now open. 🌿

Join the list through the link in my bio to be the first to know when enrolment opens and receive an exclusive early-access discount when the course launches.
If you’d like to join me, you’ll find the link in my bio.

I can’t wait to finally share this with you.
Joe x

02/08/2026

If you’d told me a year ago that I’d be travelling around in a little red van, I really don’t think I would have believed you. ❤️🚐

The last six months have been some of the busiest and most emotional I’ve ever had. I sold my home, sold my workshop where I’ve taught for so many years and somehow kept working through all of it.

Now, for the first time in a very long while, I’m giving myself permission to slow down. As a single parent and business owner, working through a global financial crisis, austerity, severe flooding and a global pandemic, working harder than I've worked in my life, I've finally found the space I need to make some big changes...

For now this little van has become my tiny home on wheels. Some mornings I wake up by the coast, other days surrounded by fields and hedgerows. I’m drinking tea outside, watching the weather change, collecting ideas from the landscape and remembering how important it is to have space to breathe.

I’m thinking about what weaving projects I'll be starting in the autumn, but for now its so lovely that I'm finally allowing myself to take a step back and look after me for a while.

It feels strange sharing this new chapter because it’s very different from the life I’ve had for years, but it also feels exciting. Day to day I don’t have a big plan or a fixed destination. I’m just taking one day at a time.

Thank you to everyone who has supported my work through all the changes. It really means more than you know. 🌿

19/07/2026

Looking through these photographs has been such a lovely way to see the workshop from a different perspective. While the first collection of images captured the space as a whole, these are show details that are so often missed when you’re busy teaching, weaving or getting on with the day. It also feels really special to have a few photographs taken downstairs in The Willows. It holds so many memories for our family and having those spaces captured together feels like a lovely reminder of a time that meant so much to all of us.

Thank you for capturing these moments with such care. It has been so special to see the workshop through your eyes. Your photographs have a beautiful way of noticing the details and atmosphere that make a place feel alive and lived in.

Over the summer I’ll be taking some time to travel, rest, gather inspiration and spend more time outdoors before returning with lots of new ideas for Creative With Nature. I’ll be sharing snippets from my days over on Stories, and if you’d like to hear about what i’m working on next, my newsletter will always be the first place I share it. You can sign up using the link in my bio.

If you’d like to come along for the journey, I’d love to have you

Joe x

12/07/2026

This workshop has seen hundreds of students and more baskets and sculptures than I could ever count.

Over the years, I’ve noticed a few things.

People often arrive convinced they aren’t creative, or worried they won’t be able to do it. By the end of the day they’re heading home with a willow creation of their own. Watching that change never gets old.

By lunchtime, the room is often quieter. Not because people have stopped talking, but because they’ve settled into the weaving. There are always stories shared around the workbench, tea and cake somewhere close by and more laughter than most people expect.

That’s what Creative With Nature has always been about.

Of course, people come to learn how to weave, but over the years I’ve realised they often leave with something else too. A little more confidence, a quieter mind, and a reminder that not everything has to be rushed. There is real satisfaction in making something slowly and well. Weaving has a way of asking for your attention. It doesn’t hurry you along. It simply meets you where you are.

I’m looking forward to sharing more of that world here.

Thank you to Sarah Mason for the photographs. It feels really special to be captured in my workshop where I have spent so many days weaving, teaching, working and spending time with family. I’ll really enjoy having these moments to look back on.

08/07/2026

Tension teaches you everything.

In willow weaving, the base only forms when you slow down enough to feel it.

Episode 3 of Weave Your First Basket is live on YouTube 🌿

What would change if you stopped rushing the beginning?

05/07/2026

Well I've only gone and done it!
I've stored or sold pretty much everything I have and left my beautiful 5 storey, 200 year old building. It was my home, in my hometown, as well as housing 2 successful businesses.
I love my life and my job, but with my kids grown up and moving on; ongoing health problems and turning 50 this year, (which really does feel like a milestone) I felt this was a turning point in my life, something is missing...

I feel it in my core. I could have stayed, in many ways it feels a bit bonkers leaving everything behind I've spent so long building up but deep down I'm a country girl. I crave peace, trees and birds.

I work so much, which has been fine, I've brought up two wonderful adults and I do genuinely love what I do for a living. But there's more to life isn't there....?

So I've done it! I'm being brave, maybe the bravest thing I've done...
I've sold up and I'm going to find what's been missing.

Wish me luck 🌸

28/06/2026

Last day today for The Willows Tea & Coffee House and Creative Basket Maker | Educator on the UK High Street 🙌
After 12 years teaching, making and selling willow baskets and sculpture in my hometown I've decided to shake things up a bit.
I've sold my beautiful 200 year old building, bought a camper van and heading off over the summer to find my dream garden 🌸
See you later today if you can make it or maybe on my travels ☘️

Address

27 Rochdale Road
Todmorden
OL147LA

Telephone

+447588944166

Website

http://www.creativewithnature.co.uk/, https://linktr.ee/creativewithnature

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