The willow harvest, because it keeps me in touch. It happens at the start of the year and is a community effort with friends coming to lend a hand, working together outside at the grimmest time of the year. The willow is then sorted, bundled and tied for drying, which takes up to a year before it is ready to be woven.

I have learnt a variety of techniques, but my heart always returns to what I have found and researched in Ireland, especially the old agricultural frame baskets. I like to get to grips with making a piece I may have seen, but I rarely want to stick to the original. This is when creativity starts to flow.

I grow more than 20 types of willow in the Sussex countryside close to where I live and this is the basis of my work. I am drawn to water, fishing baskets and lobster traps. I also love to look at museum collections and spend time wondering who made a piece, what their hands were like and how they lived.

Allow yourself to fall in love with a material or a technique. Learn the way it has been used traditionally and then find your own variation and stick to it. Don’t try to be good at everything.