New Addition to My Collection

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I just acquired a beautiful JoAnne Russo basket. It is made of twilled natural and dyed hand-pounded ash with pine needle and waxed linen rim (dated - 1997).

Another one from my photo album

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Yet another ribbed Appalachian egg or buttocks basket from my old photo album. I was really happy with the shape of this basket, but the reed was really crappy quality. There was a period in the mid/late 80s where th quality of reed really dropped. Of course this was the days of a pound of Reed was only $5-$7. 

Basket Weaving Circa 1985

After my recent class at the John C. Campbell Folk School I got out my old basket photo album. I have a fair number of photos from when I first started weaving. This basket I made back in 1985. It is woven of reed on a 8”x12” rectangular frame. I am pretty sure I wove this sitting on my dorm room floor.

A fun evening of crafting

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Perennial, my go-to place for taking fun classes using upcycled/recycled materials, hosts periodic classes at area shops. This month's make-and-take was at Larder & Cupboard in Maplewood, MO. We made upcycled notepads out of salvaged boards, discarded adding machine spools, leather, twine, wire and screws. We also make place holders out of forks (depending on the metal the utensils are made of, bending the tines can be a b*tch). And finally we made gift bags from maps, magazines pages and picture books.

Sweet little white oak ribbed basket

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My dad recently found this basket, plus its slightly larger brother (or sister. Are baskets male or female?). He had sent me a couple pics from his phone when he first found them, but without a food size reference I didn't realize how small they both actually were. This is definitely one of the nicest baskets I have seen in awhile.

4" Quadrafoil

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Finished up my 4” Shaker quadrafoil tub on Sunday. It is woven out of pounded black ash with little black ash handles and maple rims. I have had this mold and kit forever, but had never gotten around to weaving it. I love weaving the quadrafoil pattern, but these tubs are tricky in that you flip over the base when you pin it to the mold and start weaving up the sides. This doesn't sound like it would be hard, but you are now weaving "left handed" around the sides. This gives me respect for left hand weavers who are forced to weave to the right.

Now to add it to my set of 11”, 9”, 6” and 2”.

Side Handles

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Handles notched and ready to go back into the 4" quadrafoil basket I've been working on. These were carved and bent out of a single thick black ash growth ring.

4" Quadrafoil Basket

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Made rims and handles for this little 4” quadrafoil tub yesterday. Now to notch the handles and lash. I have had the materials for this basket for years, but am just now getting to work on it. I wove the body of this basket when I was in North Carolina for a basket class at the John C. Campbell Folk School. It is woven of hand pounded black ash with black ash handles and maple rims.
 

Miniature Nantucket Basket

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I used a scrap weaver from my white oak basket class for the staves and cut the cane weaver in half (not always consistently though) to make this little one inch Nantucket basket. With miniatures every little thing shows up magnified. Cutting 1.5mm cane down to .75mm is tricky and any inconsistency really shows up once the basket is woven. I should have cut out the narrower section, but I was too impatient and the thought of splicing the tiny weaver made my head hurt. Of course now, the variation in weaver width makes my head hurt. You would think after all this time I would know that this was going to bug me.

Baby basket weaver!

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Here's a Throw Back Thursday for you, from a mere 32 years ago. I had only been weaving for a couple years at this point, had already made dozens and dozens of baskets, and had come back recently from a white oak ribbed basket class with Gertie and Estel Youngblood (you can see a bundle of white oak splint leaning against the window behind me.

This photo was from an article that was going in a newly formed area newspaper/periodical. The editor wanted to do an article about basketry each issue and was going to ghost write it under my input. Unfortunately I think only three issues were every printed. I have copies somewhere in a scrapbook. I will have to dig them out.