Our driveway regularly floods when it rains, and takes awhile to dry out because of the angles and build up of silt and leaves. The silt gets slippery and we are having an unusually wet summer, so it makes the surface treacherous. I thought if I dig out the corner and place a flag stone, I might reduce the erosion. I stated digging and was quite surprised to find a drain buried under a couple inches of dirt.
Photo description: drain unearthed in the corner where the sidewalk meets the driveway
The drain connects to a similar drain on the opposite side of the driveway that I unearthed a few years ago. One mystery solved. Surprisingly, the pipe that connects the two drains is not plugged with dirt and water sprayed into the newly excavated drain goes out, under the driveway, to the other side. Now to figure out a way to keep dirt from building up and blocking it again. Hm.
I have a side hobby of spotting fake crafts. Either AI generated photos or machine made items pretending to be hand crocheted. Hand knit is harder to tell apart from machine made, since knitted fabric can be produced rapidly by a series of hooks and knitting machines have been around for a long time. I have heard of crochet machines that do make single loops with a single thread, but they are used to edge blankets and not make intricate lace. I was surprised then, when I was crawling a garage sale, to find a large crocheted throw.
Photo description: king-sized cotton crocheted lace coverletPhoto description; closeup of two motifs of the cotton coverlet, showing the stitches, all of which I can identify and recreate.
I asked the sellers for historical detail, but it was a multi-person sale and the person who owned it wasn’t there. I bought it for $8. It smelled like moth balls and time in a closet.
When I got it home, I found a tag: made in China. Oh. So this was not an heirloom blanket sold at a garage sale. This was an item bought commercially and not used. I suspect the “flat dry” was the problem. Not many people have room to flat dry a king-sized blanket.
Photo description: tag found on the blanket that reads: 100% cotton, machine wash, cold water, gentle cycle, no bleach, flat dry, made in China RN 59757
The only way to produce this large and intricate work cheaply is by using many poorly paid people. I know the original owner didn’t pay $8, but to sell it for that tells me that they didn’t pay much.
That it is in pristine condition tells me that it was barely used, if used at all. There are no stains and no tears. But it is definitely hand crocheted. I can identify each stitch and see the progression of the work. Each motif was worked with a crochet hook then connected and I can see the connection stitches. I can tell how the border was worked and what stitches were used. I washed it and dried it both by machine on the delicate and gentle cycles, and it came out fine.
That the skill to make the coverlet is so casually discarded and undervalued is a sad state.
I saw a Josephine knot based basket as I scrolled Pinterest and was immediately captivated. The construction made sense and I loved the look of the starting knot. I still had #2 reed, so I gave it a go.
My Josephine knot basket starts with ten reeds divided into two groups and woven together in a figure 8, then the stakes are woven with hemp rope and more reed.I took the reed from each side and tucked them into the woven sections on the opposite side. I used a rolled mat as a form to get the cylinder even. I still had to adjust the staves as I wove.Once the staves were set, I started weaving from the bottom of the basket to get the spacing set.When the bottom section of the basket base woven, I then switched back to weaving down from the sides, which I wouldn’t do again. I think the edge of the basket would arch nicer if I had continued to work from the base up.I added some blue colored hemp cord. The cord was thin, so I combined three shades and twisted them together as I twined the two halves around the basket staves.Where the bottom weaving met the side weaving was a little tricky because there wasn’t much space. I used more hemp rope because it was flexible enough to take tight turns and fill in the gaps.I soaked the completed basket in water, weighed down with a bowl to keep it submerged.I used bowls and twine to shape the basket as it dried.The finished, dried basket maintained the shape, and had a flat bottom which makes it stable on a table. I was pleasantly surprised that I could block the basket as I do with cloth.
When I do another of these baskets, I want to use a larger reed for the knot and staves, but still do a combination of #2 reed and cord for weaving the sides. Once I have the knot secure, I would weave from the bottom up. This basket took me a few days of interrupted time to complete.
Critters and Craft 