My husband and I go to the English Country Dancing Regency Ball every year at the Navy Hall of Fort George in Niagara-on-the-Lake. This week I had fun designing a Regency-style reticule.

Souvenir ball ticket with the reticule in our 1830s apartment window

3rd Annual Regency Ball at Fort George in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

I chose a fine Belgian Red willow to match the dress I made out of a lovely cotton fabric with a woven pattern of tiny white and red flowers. What a bargain table find at Fabricland and so very Regency.

My great-grandmother’s crocheted lace.

I am delighted to finally have a special use for the crocheted lace band you see woven in the basket. My great-grandmother in Germany crocheted it 80+ years ago. I have been holding on to it for 30 years waiting for a way to use this short length. Here it will be gently preserved woven among the stakes. I used black bias fabric tape behind it to keep it stiff and to highlight the delicate pattern.

Perhaps ladies of 1812 would not have used a basket when attending an evening ball, but I wanted something in which to hide my phone for photos!

Willow basket with French randing and braided border.

You can see I am on a French randing and braided border trend! I love the way the spirals form in this kind of randing, so I selected a Bleu and a Hakuro Nishiki for contrasting colours in the side weavers. I had struggled in Week 6 with too thick willow in my first braided border. Since I practised the braiding technique on the last two weeks’ wire baskets, I wanted to give it another go in willow.

Here is a little rhyme I made up to remind me of the steps for the braided border:

Criss, cross, a stake to ground.

Then leave its neighbour pointing down.

I used the dimensions and stake pattern from Jon Ridgeon’s first project in his book and on his website, but after the set up I got artistic with the colours, randing and border!

Marie curled up in the willow oval basket.

This week I had a basket partner because my Mom and I made these together.  She is a tapestry artist but her first weaving dates back to making reed baskets as a child back in Germany!  Now you can see from where my emerging love of basket weaving has come.

Mom soaked the willow in her bathtub for days before I came down.  We chose some colour variation using Americana (greenish) and Belgian Red (reddish brown).  We followed Jon Ridgeon’s chapter for an oval basket in his book Willow Basketry: A How-To Guide.

Magnus thinks he’s in a basket boat.

It was my first oval basket other than the Catalan base I made last year.  The oval base did flatten out as per the suggestion in Jon’s book to reverse the chase weave pattern halfway through.  We however made the mistake of choosing side stakes that were too thick, so we had a couple of problems. I also dropped stakes along the way so lost my braided pattern.  Editor’s Note: See my second attempt in Week 9 where I made up a rhyme to remember the steps!

Trouble at the border: the side stakes were too thick, so they cracked in spite of pricking with a knife blade and then made the braiding very difficult.

Solution to the broken stake at the border: I clipped the broken stake off and inserted a fresh on down the same channel.