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!