This is my third double walled basket and I can definitely see my skill improvement. I wanted a larger, concave shape, and I was able to achieve the shape I wanted.
I love these baskets. Now I want to experiment with different materials.
I’ve made my second double walled basket, this time on my own. I had most of the tools necessary, except clothes pins. I was rather shocked that I didn’t have any clothes pins squirreled away. (I have them now.)
I wanted to make a larger basket, so added in more stakes, but the base was curving up too fast, so I switched to weaving from the inside, letting the spokes flair out, and it gave me a lovely convex curve on the sides of the basket.
This time around I followed the curve of the reed on the outer wall, rather than adhering to the grooves of the inner wall, which resulted in a spiral effect on the outside that I quite like. These baskets take me a full day to make, and once I start I don’t want to stop, so I have to plan my time carefully.
In May of 2014 I crocheted a rather large owl basket for my Mom.
It stands up well when it is filled with towels. I like the spiral eyes as a choice. I believe I used a wool yarn that I had in my stash at the time.
For my North Carolina grown cotton fiber page I had enough hand spun crepe yarn to twine a small pouch. I used a square of sanded eighth inch plywood as my form and twined until I was about square. To finish the bottom, I ran the warp threads up the opposite side of the bag.
After I wove in all the warp threads, I realized a probably should have knotted them, then wove them in. Since this bag will only be on display in a book, it won’t see heavy use, but it is something I need to remember for next time I twine a bag. The picture of the pouch looks skewed because there is a bias twist in the fabric. I noticed when I started twining that I was actually untwisting the ply, so I switched my twine direction, which reinforced the ply, but gave it extra twist energy. It should even out after blocking.
I was so excited about learning to weave baskets that I bought a pound of #2 round reed made from rattan palm. As I prepped stakes and weavers from the coiled bundle, I had shorter lengths left over. My weaver friend told me how to make coasters, so I saved the “waste” reed and used it as the stakes for a small weaving.
These coasters use shorter lengths of reed for the stakes or spokes, and one long weaver that weaves around the middle. It starts the same was as a double walled basket, but stays flat. They don’t take as long to weave as a full basket, and they seem to make excellent little mats for coffee or tea.
Critters and Craft 