Learn at your own pace!

This workshop includes pre-recorded video lessons as described in the curriculum below. Once purchased, you will receive the kit shown below and can take the workshop on your own time. You can watch the video lessons as many times as you'd like whenever you'd like. And while you're learning, you can reach out to us anytime at [email protected] with questions or comments.

Course curriculum

    1. About this workshop

    2. About Kathleen Myers

    3. About the use of antique ivory

    1. Unpack your kit

    2. Tools you'll need to collect from home

    1. Sanding and finishing your cherry-wood parts

    2. Taper the staves

    3. Set the staves into the base

    4. Prep the cane

    5. Begin to weave

    6. Splicing the cane to connect weavers

    7. Attaching the rim

    8. Finishing touches

    1. Master Basketmaker Kathleen Myers interview with Mary Lacoursiere

    1. Additional Resources

    2. Taking care of your Nantucket Lightship Basket

    3. Weaving Nantucket's Past into Its Future: The History of Nantucket Lightship Baskets

About this course

  • $475.00
  • 17 lessons

Materials Included

You will receive a kit with all the materials necessary to create an authentic Nantucket Lightship Basket to proudly display or give.

  • Cherry wood base, lid, and rim

  • Plastic basket mold

  • Natural rattan 1.75 weaving material from renewable sources

  • Stave material as the base for weaving with sample stave for taper size

  • Bone lid knob and base plugs

  • Multi-grit sandpapers and nail file

  • Large elastic band, thimble covers, Super Glue, and a small pot of General Finishes Gel Topcoat

Optional Basketmaking Toolkit $45

We've assembled a handy kit with additional tools you might not find at home. The kit includes:
  • Small carpenter's hand plane
  • Utility or break-away knife
  • Packing tool
  • Clippers

The kit is available for purchase in the NHA Museum Shop online.
Purchase

Instructor

Kathleen Myers has been weaving baskets since the 1960s. She was introduced to Nantucket lightship baskets in the 1980s at a workshop in Michigan. She traveled to Nantucket in 1990s to study part-time with established basket weavers earning a "spot on the bench" at Nantucket Basket Works in 1996. She moved permanently to Nantucket in 1997 and set up shop for herself, where she continues creating baskets through private commissions.

The Nantucket Lightship Basket Museum was started by a group of basketmakers and collectors in 1997. Kathleen joined the Nantucket Lightship Basket Museum a year after its first exhibition and was asked to be a member of the board, a position she held for twenty years, along with assisting with the museum's annual exhibitions.

After the affiliation of the Nantucket Lightship Basket Museum with the Nantucket Historical Association in 2021, Kathleen guest curated the 2021 and 2022 basket exhibitions at the NHA’s Hadwen House. Today she is a recognized master basketmaker along with her mentors Tim Parsons, Karol Linquist, Nap Plank, and Alan S.W. Reed.

Kathleen Myers

Master Nantucket Lightship Basketmaker