Christmas Centerpiece

The greenery and blue berries of fresh juniper adds beauty and fragrance to my holiday dining table. The arrangement is decorated with a few traditional ornaments: birds, apples, wooden soldier and delivery truck, as well as a few wrapped boxes. I reused a rectangular 12 inch basket as the container, lined it with waterproof plastic, and an inserted the juniper branches into an old floral-foam block for easy watering.

Christmas Wreath

Simple traditional holiday charm: evergreens mounted on a ring using green wire; a red velvet bow, a few pine cones (some facing up, some facing down for different textures), a chestnut on 2 dry brown leaves, a few small red fruits (glued at their stems into a cluster - the only glue on this wreath), all held in place with green wire.

Field Basket

Please meet my field basket! Take this basket to the field, the orchard, or your garden and load it with your harvest. The side handles of this sturdy basket make it easy to carry large heavy loads and convenient for two to share the load. It measures 17 inches in diameter and 9 inches high. The base cross is made of 15 willow sticks of 14 inches. A 4-foot willow rod was inserted next to each of the 30 spokes, and 30 bye stakes were inserted next to each spoke for the top half. The chased paired weaving of the base was made with about 8 sets of 4 weavers of willow and red dogwood. The sides are woven with 3 rows of 12 strong willow whalers (thanks to Mary Ann for the bright spring green willows), and two bands of French randing (30 rods each, one inserted between each stake), the bottom one with cotoneaster and the top one with an unidentified shrub. This was my fourth basket and I am eager to fill it with the produce of my garden!

Flower Basket

This flower or herb gathering basket offers a long flat surface so that long stems can lie flat and hang over the edge without being bent. It is essentially woven as a flat disk with the sides bent up and held into shape by the handle. My creation is 24 inches long, 17 inches wide and 22 inches high. That is 62 by 44 by 55 centimeters. The range of colors (yes they are all natural bark colors, untreated) offers a sample of the various shrubs and trees of my backyard that I pruned just before the snow completely melted, plus a few willows from the neighborhood. I dedicated two intensive days for the weaving, after spending countless hours pruning appropriate rods, sorting them and selecting the ones to use for each step of the weaving, and shaping a 4-foot choke cherry sucker (from my friend Judy) into a handle. The base cross is made of 9 willow sticks of 12 inches, which creates 18 spokes. Each base spoke is then extended with 2 3-foot long stakes of red dogwood, inserted on either side of the base spoke, and an 8-inch long bye stake in the middle, except for the bye stakes on either side which were 14 inches long and were eventually replaced by the handle. Most of the weaving was done with two pairs of weavers chasing each other, amounting to 20 sets of 4 rods varying from fine and pliable to thicker and stronger, including willows, cotoneaster, red and green dogwood, suckers of choke cherry and aspen, and yet unidentified shrubs. Two sets of 12 contrasting and strong spindle rods were used for the transition whaling, where the base sticks meet the stakes, and just under the braided border. This was my third basket and my enthusiasm for basket weaving is flowering! 

Garden Basket - Oval with Handle

This is my second basket, colorful and textured, sturdy and useful, and the aroma of the wood is therapeutic. It is more complex, bigger and stronger than my first simple round basket. A garden basket, or market basket, is oval in shape (long and narrow) and has a handle, making it convenient to carry at one's side and to hold fresh produce from the garden or the market. Again, the actual weaving took me two full days. Most of the material is from shrubs and trees around the house, from Cindy's orchard and the precious willow from the river bank. The 9 bottom sticks are willow, woven in reverse pairing with 32 rods of willow and cotoneaster. Long red dogwood rods were used for the 28 stakes, which become the border, and were reinforced with 24 short maple sticks. The other 4 stakes are reinforced by the handle. Pale green spindle adds 2 strips of contrast: the base whaling or triple weave (12 rods) and the middle four-rod randing or 2-ply weave (16 rods). The side weavers of dark reddish-green are cotoneaster (28 for French randing or slewing weave near the base, 32 for the four-rod randing just under the plaited or braid border). Thanks to Cindy for the apple tree cuttings that became the two bows of the handle, which were wrapped together with 3 rods of spindle and 2 of dogwood. My fingers are sore, but my pride and satisfaction are dancing joyfully.

Spring equinox budding indoors

I was pruning some cotoneaster shrubs on March 13 just while the ground was still frozen and before the warm weather came. I put some bare branches in a flat vase with a pin holder, and water. To my surprise, on spring equinox day, a week later, the branches were budding and greening my table with spring leaves. What a delight!

Natural winter wreath

What is special about this wreath other than "this is the first I ever made and the materials are prunings of shrubs and straw from the backyard"? The answer is it is ONLY made of prunings WITHOUT any glue, wire or string. It is 100% compostable. Nothing was purchased from the store other than the pruning shears. It holds together by the weaving of the spiraling rods. However, some wire and string were used temporarily during the making process to secure the different parts until everything was blocked into place by the weaving rods.


The base ring is made of fine cotoneaster branches, 18 to 30 inches in length, that were cut during the winter, and immediately assembled into a ring shape before drying, so they would dry into the wanted circular shape. I started by coiling just a few rods to shape a ring of 16 inch in diameter, staggering their butts evenly around the ring, then kept adding more rods. While building the coiled ring, it was held in shape by a few wrapped wires. Once the coil of the ring reached about an inch and a half, the coil was wrapped in a spiraling string and the wires removed. Then it was left to dry for 3 weeks in the garage.


For the final assembly, I used a mixture of fresh cut branches (cotoneaster, spindle, dogwood) and dried straw and weed flowers collected in the fall. I started by small bundles of straw (7 stems together per bunch) secured into place temporarily by wrapped wire or string. After placing each bunch against the inside of the ring, one rod of cotoneaster was spiraled around the ring to block that bunch into place. Eventually the spiraling rods were completely wrapping around all the straw and flower stems. As the work progressed I was able to remove the temporary wires and strings, and the wreath held together simply by the interweaving of the stems and rods.

Caring for baskets

This woven mat fell into my hands at the thrift store. I liked the decorative pattern and  thought it would be a good model to reproduce. It was old and brittle, some pieces were broken and others were misshapen. Baskets like being soaked in water, for about 30 minutes, once a year. While they are wet, their original shape can be restored. This bath cleans them of accumulated dust and dirt. It moistens the natural fibers and helps them remain supple and prevent breakage. After a bath and some caring, the repaired mat almost looks like new, and is happy to protect the surface of  the kitchen table.