Weaving is Healing Two-day weekend workshop Noosa August 17-18

A two-day basketry workshop, ceremony and healing experience, also available for single day attendance. Coil weave and twist weave styles.

The two sessions comprise of a coil weave workshop (‘lazy squaw’ stitch) and a twist weave basket making workshop, on 17 and 18 August 2024, respectively. They are available as single day workshops but are best done together, and are perfect for beginners as well as advanced weavers. Please note that this is not an Indigenous workshop or a technique indigenous to Australia, but a workshop that embraces creativity, ceremony as well as community to promote healing processes in an organic and soulful manner.

This is a opportunity to join René Bahloo from Weavery, to sit and weave together in circle. It’s much more than a skill-building, tuition-based workshop; it is a space where wisdom is shared, experienced and breathed together as the workshop unfolds itself, wrapped with the fibre of life as well as the fibre of nature, and deep human connection.

You will learn to create a basket with your choice of pandanus spiralus fibre, (a strong, waxy and colourful fibre sourced ethically from weavers in Arnhem Land), raffia and cordyline, while immersing in deep connection to story, land, nature and to life.

10.30am till 3.30 pm. $140 pp. per day (members), $255 (members) for both days.

$170 and $285 (non-members).

The workshop will be facilitated through means of a ceremonial space where you will be nurtured and held safely in a circle of like-minded beings, sharing and breathing and creating together.

This is an opportunity to experience the ancient art of basket weaving as a deeply mindful and contemplative practice. It is a space of sharing, creating, being and breathing, conducted through ceremony and celebration of life. Using natural materials from the land, you will learn to weave individual strands of fibre together to form a whole creation, while recognising and acknowledging the mirrors and metaphors that bind us together with nature and each other.

Like a weave within a weave, this has the power of revealing a way of being that is nurturing, growthful, enlightening and honouring of the energy of creation. Together we will weave baskets that hold in their fibres all of the stories we share, flowing in symphony with the songs of nature as they unfold around and within us.

All materials are provided.Extra pandanus fibre will be available to buy on the day, if needed for future weaving projects or expansion of your current one.

Please bring a chair, cushion or mat to sit on, and something savoury to share for lunch.

Tickets can be booked online or by emailing to organise a direct deposit / cash. (direct deposit bypasses the eventbrite fee).

weaverywork@gmail.com

(0438)162552

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Weaving journey to Arnhem Land 2016

‘Gunbalanya welcomes you’ the sign reads. As we drive into the remote Indigenous community in west Arnhem Land, I can feel the welcoming spirit of the land. My family is waiting there… Adopted family, spirit family – Priscilla, Sylvia, Merrill, Lorraine… Christine is still in Darwin. They’re waiting for us to arrive so we can begin our journey together.

Wet season has just ended, the pandanus is lush and the ground is soft and springy with latent growth. Perfect for harvesting fibre and digging up dye plants: yellow, brown, orange. Stripping, stripping – stripping pandanus leaf fibre, not clothes! (even though it’s hot enough😊). Sitting under the shade of a paperbark tree, we work together, sometimes in contemplative silence, sometimes with bouts of laughter and advice from our weaving mentors.

As the dye pots bubble, so the fire sizzles with the preparation of a surprise lunchtime snack – a long-necked turtle from Lorraine’s mother in stone country. Yum! Tastes like chicken! Haha… Chewy chicken. Eating an unlaid turtle egg is a bit strange though…


A big crocodile lurks in the waters of the nearby rock hole, somewhere… Or so the rumour goes… but nobody (including me) is keen to test the story out… ‘GINGA! (croc) You kids stay close!’ is the call to the younger members of our crew.

Travelling in flow with the universe means that we are open to unexpected delights, like a visit to the Pandanus Man spirit – first in his manifestation as an ancient rock painting, then in his form in physical reality – a ‘flat-one’ pandanus plant. Notice his six fingers which indicate he is a cheeky spirit – pregnant mums and small kids must avert their haze for fear of young minds being stolen.


Three- legged dog dreaming rock was another unexpected sight to behold. Perched on (yes) three legs, the rock towers above us, holding space for the dreaming ancestor female dog who broke her leg and couldn’t continue on her journey through the landscape to find water.

Fun and humour travelled with us in the bus, chuckling with mirth as we told stories and shared memories. Snakes crossed our path, brolgas browsed, wild pigs grunted, brumbies galloped by: all in the space of a moment in infinite time. Spirit crossed the country alongside us, guiding and guarding.


It was a lifetime too soon when our days in this land came to an end. Hearts filled with warmth and glow, minds silent in contemplative awe, we made our way back to our everyday lives, infinitely richer for being given time our spirit family of wonderful weaving women, in this place and space of healing.

These exclusive journeys happen only twice a year, in dry season (escape the southern winter cold). Join us if you feel the calling.

All event booking links can be found here