15" Diameter Southwest Arrow Basket

 The base of this basket is twined using #1 round reed..

The sides are based on the spokes from the base plus additional spokes are added during the creation of the base. The arrow design is made up of many short pieces of dyed basket material woven in a arrow pattern where some of the short pieces are woven to the left and others are woven to the right.Below and above the arrow design the basket material is twined using a three rod wale pattern.

The handles are bushel basket handles woven into the sides of the basket.

This was an interesting basket to make as it incorporated many different weaving techniques.

Gourds

I have been dabbling a bit with primitive gourd art. In 2013 I traded some items for gourds. Some of the books sold at the store are based on working with gourds. So, I thought I would put my experience with making twined bags and working with baskets toward gourd design.

One of the techniques used with gourds is coiling the rim (I have two containers that have coiled rims and am working on a third). Coiling takes a long time depending on the size of the rim and the thread used for the coiling. I used 2 ply waxed linen thread (4 ply is recommended but I did not have any on hand) and .5 oz hemp cordage.  The large gourd with a coiled rim took about a week just to do the coiling. Thank goodness for the Internet and streaming movies. I also checked my native American books based on certain geometric designs used in textiles, etc  and thought some of the designs could be painted on gourds also.

I painted the gourds with leather dye and sometimes added a red chestnut wood stain.

The following pictures are samples of some of the gourd bowls, containers, bird houses, etc that I have made.

    

Utility Basket

This utility basket would be great for use in the kitchen. The basket is 9 1/2" tall with an inside diameter of 4 1/2". It is made from 20 pieces of flat reed - 34 inches long (four of them are a green color the others are walnut died). Each piece is woven diagonally (plaited) in a twill weave design. The rim is 1/2" flat oval on the outside and 1/2" flat on the inside. The lashing is based on wrapping every 4th opening.

Purple/Red Square to round with Arrow Design

This is a square to round basket dyed purple and dark pink. The center part of the basket is twill woven into a dark pink arrow design. The handle is also dyed purple.

Round Basket

This basket has a 8" twined base with 12 spokes. The dimensions are  10" diameter at the rim, 8" in height with a hand made wooden handle (about 5" higher than the rim) . It is walnut dyed. The basket is similar to a bean pot basket. The only difference is it does not flay out and then come back in. It is a constant 10" diameter. It is also taller.

Gift Baskets

Christmas of 2010, I made up gift baskets for some relatives of mine.

This is something I will be toying around with at the store and will be offering very soon.

Checkerboard Basket

This basket is not only a basket but you can also play checkers with it as 12 natural and 12 red checkers are attached on a string to the basket. I used 3/4" red material and 1/2" natural for the base and 1/2" natural for the weavers. Currently, the basket is 14" x 12 1/2" at the rim with 4" sides.

I would like to experiment with adding more stakes to the base and having the sides a bit shorter and making the base a bit longer on one side.