Utility Basket

This is my April 2010 basket: a large and sturdy utility basket with a foot border. I have used it to hold my tomato starts pots in the spring and now it is full of paper bags containing seeds from my garden in their final drying stages. In between it has been used to contain gardening tools and gloves. It has been well used. I must say however that, even though is was my fifth basket, and should have been easy to do, it was the most frustrating to weave. The reason being that my branches were too old (cut 5 months before) and dry and I started with too many spokes for the base (they were too close together), making it hard to weave in tight spaces. The morale is next time use the branches within 2 or 3 months, and start the base cross with fewer spokes and add more spokes in between after a few rows. The new element in this basket is the foot border. It is done last, inserting new stakes next to each upright stake and weaving the same kind of border done on top of the basket. The border makes the basket more stable and longer lasting as it prevents wear on the bottom of the basket. If the bottom border get damaged it can be removed or replaced.

The base cross has 13 willow sticks (26 spokes) 13 inches long. The sides have 30 4-foot willow stakes. The weavers (more than 100 in all) are made of green and flame willow, beige spindles, red dogwood. The foot border is made of 28 willow stakes and red dogwood whalers.